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HORA PHILOLOGICA, 



OR, 



CONJECTURES ON THE STRUCTURE 



OF THE 



GREEK LANGUAGE. 



BY WILLIAM SEWELL, M. A. 



FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD. 




OXFORD, 
D. A. TALBOYS 

1830. 




^h 






^'K 



TALBOYS AND BrxOWNE, PRINTERS, OXFORD. 



TO THE 



SOCIETY OF EXETER COLLEGE, 



THIS LITTLE ESSAY 



MOST GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



BY THE AUTHOR. 



NOTE TO THE READER. 



In the only place where a writer is allowed 
to speak of himself, I may, perhaps, be per- 
mitted to apologize for any errors in the fol- 
lowing little Essay, first, by candidly plead- 
ing very great ignorance of the critical labours 
of others ; and secondly, by explaining that 
the observations themselves were made solely 
for my own amusement, during a late tour on 
the continent, when I could obtain no access 
to books ; and possessed no other means of as- 
certaining their accuracy, but conversation with 
a most valued and gifted friend *, to whose ta- 
lents and researches on similar subjects I may 
attribute either directly, or indirectly, anything 
not altogether valueless in the conjectures 
themselves. 

As I am not likely to possess much leisure 
for prosecuting philological inquiries, and have 
found even the present sketch, with all its ma- 
nifold imperfections, useful on more than one 
occasion in encouraging a fondness for critical 
studies, I have not scrupled, though with great 
diffidence of its value, to offer it to any student 
who may be inclined to exercise his own mind 
in refuting or confirming the hypotheses of 
others. 

* William Crichton, esq. of Merton college, Oxford. 



HORA PIIILOLOGICA 



USE OF LANGUAGE. 

Among the many principles of action, which 
Nature has implanted in the Human mind, 
there are two which seem principally to have 
led us to the formation and employment of 
Language ; our animal wants, and the desire of 
Sympathy. If we could supply the former 
without the assistance of society, or gratify 
the latter without communicating our ideas, in 
all probability language would have never ex- 
isted. In our present constitution, however, 
we find it perpetually necessary to act upon 
the minds of the beings which surround us, in 
order to bring them into those states in which 
they will be inclined to satisfy our wants, or 
harmonize with our own feelings. And man, 
thus surrounded by animated creatures, is not 
unlike a musician playing on an enormous organ 
filled with millions of chords and pipes, and 
moving on the most delicate springs, which run 
into and act upon each other in complications 
impossible to follow ; and produce either har- 
mony or discord in proportion to the skill of 
the performer. 

B 



2 USE OF LANGUAGE. 

Now as every impression on the mind must 
be made through one of the senses, we must 
employ as the medium of our communication 
with it, either the touch, the taste, the smell, 
the eye, or the ear. We employ the first when 
we whip a child to keep him from mischief; 
the second, when we bribe him with sugaf- 
plums ; the third, when we apply scents to 
the nose of a fainting person; the fourth, in 
exhibiting a picture ; and the fifth, in the 
composition of music. And in all these cases 
the mind is immediately brought into the state 
which we wish to produce. 

But as our object is to possess an absolute 
control over its habits, and the power of bring- 
ing it, as we wish, into every possible state, of 
which it is susceptible ; it is evident that both 
the organs which we affect, and the instru- 
ments by which we act on them, must severally 
possess the two following qualities : 

I. They must be as much as possible within 
our own command. 

II. They should be capable, the one of con- 
veying, and the other of receiving, as great 
a variety of distinct impressions, as there are 
distinct ideas to be produced in the mind. 

To possess a perfect command of musical 
combinations we must have an instrument pro- 
vided with the requisite number of keys, and 
those keys completely within our reach. 



USE OF LANGUAGE. 3 

With respect to the first qualification, it is 
obvious that the ear is the organ to which we 
have most readily access : we can reach it 
with greater rapidity; from a greater distance 
than any other ; under circumstances when no 
'other can be approached; and with the least 
probability of finding its avenues blocked up. 
The slightest partition will prevent our acting 
upon the touch, the taste, the smell, or even 
the eye ; and any one of these senses we can 
easily prevent from receiving impressions, when 
disinclined to admit them. The ear is however 
always open, and difficult to be closed. And 
the instrument, by which we are enabled to act 
on it, is likewise more in our power than any 
other of our organs ; since it is the hardest of 
all to confine, and nearly the last of which we 
are deprived by dissolution. 

With regard to the second qualification, sup- 
posing that we were able to produce none but 
immediate impressions on the mind ; i. e. none 
through the ear but sounds, none through the. 
eye but colour and figure, and none through 
the touch but heat and cold, or hardness 
and softness, it is evident that the fittest me- 
dium for our mutual communication would be 
the sense which took the widest range, and 
admitted the greatest variety of ideas. This 
would of course be the eye ; and in such a 
language actual substances, or pictures, would 

B 2 



4 USE OF LANGUAGE. 

constitute our words ; as travellers converse 
with savages, and the Mexicans transmitted 
their news. But such a language would be in 
the first place an extremely clumsy machine. 
Portable mountains, and rivers, and trees, are 
not procurable at a moment's notice, when we 
wish to set them before the eyes of our audi- 
ence ; and even pen, ink, and paper, to sketch 
them, are frequently out of our reach. 2. It 
would be very deficient, since all the art of 
man could not convey through the eye the 
ideas of sweetness, bitterness, grave sounds, 
coldness or warmth, or, in short, any other 
ideas than those which we perceive through 
the eye. And thus the other four senses would 
be left without any representative. 3. It would 
fail in that essential point, the power of con- 
veying abstract ideas, since to the eye colour 
could never be exhibited without extension, 
nor extension without figure ; nor a quality of 
the mind without an action of the body; nor 
motion without a number of accidental circum- 
stances ; so that the process of distinguishing 
the idea we wished to call up, amidst this 
group of extraneous attributes, would be one 
of considerable time, and no less difficulty''. 
Fortunately from this awkward resource Na- 
ture herself has rescued us by the law of asso- 

* See Appendix (A). 



USE OF LANGUAGE. 5 

elation ; that simple law, by which when the 
mind has passed several times consecutively 
from one state to another, from A to B, it 
acquires a tendency to repeat the same order 
of ideas whenever the first link occurs ; and 
to slide into A whenever it is brought into B. 
By this law then we are enabled to select 
one single sense, in order to convey a number 
of impressions to the mind ; each of which im- 
pressions, having previously been associated with 
some other idea, will call it up again in future, 
and stand to it in the relation of a sign, or in- 
dicator, as a buoy to an anchor, a rope to a 
bucket in a well, or a bank note to the value 
which it represents. And taking this last kind 
of sign as an illustration, we shall be able to 
ascertain by it what are the requisite qualifica- 
tions of signs in general. One great advantage 
then of paper money as a medium of exchange 
is its infinite divisibility, by which it is enabled : 
1 . to represent every possible denomination of 
value; 2. to represent them distinctly and 
precisely; and 3. to effect this by a very sim- 
ple and easy process; viz. the repetition and 
combination of a very few primary elements. 
Another great advantage is the rapidity with 
which it can be circulated; and the certainty 
and simplicity with which our calculations may 
be carried on in it, without a constant reference 
to positive value incorporated in articles of 



6 USE OF LANGUAGE. 

commerce. Another advantage is its perfect 
intrinsic valuelessness ; by which, if properly 
managed, it would be preserved from all fluc- 
tuations ; and prevent any confusion from 
arising between the sign of value and the thing- 
signified. 

Now precisely analogous qualifications are 
requisite in those ideas or impressions, which 
we employ as signs to the mind, or representa- 
tives of other ideas. 

I. They should be sufficiently numerous to 
supply a different sign for every different idea 
or group of ideas. 

II. Each of these signs should be distinct 
from the other, in order to call up distinct ideas. 

III. As their variety must be very great 
from the nature of their office, and yet it is 
difficult for the memory to retain any consider- 
able number, they must be compounded of a 
few simple elements, whose signification may 
easily be embraced and retained in the mind. 

IV. They should be capable of being em- 
ployed with quickness and facility, to satisfy 
the impatience of a substance which has to 
express the most rapid movements by a slow 
vehicle. 

V. They should be as abstract as possible, 
to prevent any confusion, and to enable us to 
employ them with precision and distinctness. 

It is evident that in comparing the means 



FORMATION OF LANGUAGE. 7 

which the eye and the ear respectively present 
of conveying to the mind a series of signs thus 
constituted, the ear possesses a great superiority 
over the eye in all cases where we can reach 
by sounds the object which we wish to affect. 
Where it is removed to a distance we address 
ourselves to the eye ; and in both cases we 
endeavour to frame signs endowed with all the 
requisite excellences. Hence in speaking we 
are glad to employ a few primitive sounds, 
which are very rapidly pronounced, run easily 
into each other, present but one single idea to 
the mind, and represent an infinite variety of 
ideas by combinations of the same simple 
principles. And in writing, the same. — Each 
letter being as simple as possible, as quickly 
written, as unmeaning in itself, and as rich in 
the multiplicity of its uses, as it is numerous in 
the possibilities of its combinations. 

Still, notwithstanding the judgment with 
which sounds have been selected as the me- 
dium of our mutual communications in society, 
it remains to be inquired, how we were led to 
select and to frame them. It is quite obvious 
that the first man who employed language had 
never contemplated the subject in this light, or 
weighed all the relative merits and demerits of 
the different senses. It is equally difficult to 
conceive how any two or more persons could 
have existed without some means of mutual 



8 FORMATION OF LANGUAGE. 

communication ; or how, without some means 
already established, they could arbitrarily 
agree to attribute a certain number of ideas 
respectively to certain insignificant signs. It 
is also a maxim of sound philosophy, that 
where a phenomenon may be explained by 
facts which are clear and ascertained, we are 
not to wander for solutions into the mists of 
hypothesis and conjecture : and lastly, there is 
a strong probability that Nature, who has so 
elaborately provided for all the other wants of 
our helplessness, has not left us unassisted in 
this most essential particular ; but having made 
language necessary to our happiness, led us 
also instinctively to its formation. And if we 
can once discover laws of mind adequate to 
accomplish this purpose, we may consider the 
problem as solved, and neither have recourse 
to revelation where revelation is not necessary, 
nor to the arbitrary caprice of man where such 
a principle could not possibly operate. 

We find, then, that Nature has placed in our 
throats a very curious and complicated ma- 
chine, by which, with the assistance of the 
organs of the mouth, we are enabled to pro- 
duce a number of sounds, and to modify, ar- 
range, and combine them as we wish : we feel 
also that there is a strong sympathy, or, per- 
haps to speak more accurately, a close connec- 
tion between this instrument and other nerves 



FORMATION OF LANGUAGE. 9 

and muscles communicating with the brain ; 
so that an affection of one of these nerves is 
immediately followed by an affection of the 
voice ; and this not indiscriminately, but with 
all the distinctions of feeling accurately mark- 
ed. Joy never is expressed in slow and low 
tones, or grief in rapid and lively airs. Parti- 
cular notes are appropriated to particular pas- 
sions. The very rhythm of sounds indicates 
the state of the mind; and their mere inflexions 
and cadences will not only express, but com- 
municate the several emotions which produced 
them. The action in short is reciprocal. Sor- 
row in the mind of one man produces a flood 
of tears, and that flood of tears instinctively 
produces sorrow in the mind of another. Tri- 
umph is expressed by a loud cry of exultation; 
and this same sound produces in other minds 
the same state from which it originated itself. 
Beyond this fact we cannot perhaps at present 
advance, but we here obtain one element of 
language instinctively taught us without our 
choice ; without even our consciousness of the 
mode by which to employ it. We have certain 
simple sounds, and modifications of sounds, to 
express and to communicate certain passions 
of the mind. 

II. The love of imitation, which is perhaps 
resolvable into three principles : the force of 
sympathy, the tendency of the mind to recur 



10 FORMATION OF LANGUAGE. 

into a previously existing state, and in some 
cases the pleasure of exercising power, sup- 
plies us at once with another class of words, 
which represent sounds by sounds. 

Onomatopoeias abound in all tongues, and 
are formed every day by the most vulgar and 
ignorant minds. 

IIL As some sounds are pleasing and others 
displeasing, it will be very natural, by the law 
of association, to represent all agreeable ob- 
jects by the first class of sounds, and dis- 
agreeable objects by the second ; and the 
influence of this analogy is perceptible in all 
languages. 

IV. Not only will individual ideas be repre- 
sented in this manner, but the mode of succes- 
sion in which they occur, the quickness, or 
slowness, or abruptness of their transition, will 
be likewise expressed by quick, or slow, or 
abrupt sounds. The rhythm in which the 
ideas are conveyed to the mind, will exactly 
tally with the rhythm of the sounds by which 
they are indicated. It is quite as unnatural to 
dance out of time as to be sorrowful in tro- 
chaics or joyful in spondees. 

V. There is a great sympathy between the 
different senses; and the man who compared 
the colour of scarlet to the note of a trumpet, 
from finding that the impression on his mind 
was in some degree the same, would naturally 



FORMATION OF LAxVGUAGE. II 

express the one by the other. Every one has 
heard of tastes being compared to odours, and 
feelings to sounds. Thus we speak of harsh 
outlines and harsh tones, of clear light and 
clear notes, of softness as applied to the touch, 
the ear, and the eye. And the universal mix- 
ture of metaphor w^hich pervades all languages 
w^hen speaking of the senses, is a sufficient 
illustration of the fact. 

VL Accidental and natural associations will 
frequently have connected sounds with ideas 
which naturally are totally distinct from them^. 

VII. The slightest analogies between objects 
will be seized, and give rise to their classifica- 
tion under one common sound. 

VIII. As we employ in shorthand writing, 
part of a letter to indicate a whole word, so in 
the wish to express our thoughts with rapidity 
equal to their succession, we shall employ a 
single sound to express a whole group of ideas 
which we have observed in connection with it : 
the rustling of a tree to represent a tree, a 
sound like a roar to indicate the sea. 

Such are some of the chief principles which 
would guide man in the adoption of particular 
sounds to represent ideas and objects. None 
of them arbitrary, none depending on our own 
choice. None even, in which we are ac- 

*> 3ee Appendix (B). 



12 DIVISION OF WORDS. 

quainted with the mode of operation. The 
meanest rustic acts upon them every day in 
the communication of his feelings : and if an- 
other world were peopled from a single pair 
constituted and organized as man, its language, 
with very few exceptions arising from acci- 
dental associations, would be the same as the 
one which we employ. 

Besides, however, the use and advantage of 
language and the means by which we arrived 
at it, there is another inquiry concerning the 
nature of those combinations of sound, whether 
expressed by the voice or represented by writ- 
ten lines, which we denominate words. And 
difficulties have been thrown in the way of this 
inquiry by the very nature of language. In 
learning to speak we do not acquire each word 
separately, attaching to each its peculiar signi- 
fication. But we run off whole sentences by 
rote, in which the only terms invested with 
distinct ideas are objects of sight, and of the 
other senses, and all the abstract terms, with 
the intermediate links, and little particles 
which tie them together, convey nothing but 
a vague and scarcely perceptible notion of 
something very undefined, which we do not 
take the trouble to examine. The sounds run 
so easily and quickly into each other both from 
habit and their own natures, that we never 
stop to break their links, and examine each of 



DIVISION OF WORDS. 15 

them apart from the rest. And hence three 
errors have been fostered in many grammatical 
speculations. 

I. The opinion that one word influences or 
governs another, because they are generally 
connected together, just as the conjunction of 
antecedents and consequents in the physical 
world has given rise to the vulgar belief in 
some mysterious energy communicating be- 
tween them. And the real source of both 
these errors may perhaps be traced to the 
rapid action of the mind, which actually blends 
and runs together states which have frequently 
appeared in succession. 

II. The assertion that some words have no 
signification except when combined with others. 

III. The belief that son^e have no original 
signification whatever, because none has been 
attached to them by us. 

Whereas if we look to the earliest languages 
and those least perfect in the present day, we 
find them made up of words entirely distinct 
from each other, each with a separate meaning, 
and unconnected by any particles. The more 
also we analyze by etymology our own more 
complicated tongues, the more reason we find 
to break them up into their separate elements. 
And in fact, since every word was first em- 
ployed as a sign of some state of mind, and 
those states of mind follow one another in re- 



U DIVISION OF WORDS. 

gular but distinct succession, their signs must 
be equally distinct in their original use and ap- 
plication. And to say that a sign was em- 
ployed without anything for it to signify, that 
words were framed to represent things which 
did not exist, which is to say that there are 
words without any meaning properly attached 
to them, is as great an absurdity as to conceive 
the institution of a paper currency without 
value attached to it, or of a telegraphic com- 
munication, where neither party understood 
the movements. 

Three principles then must necessarily be 
laid down. 

I. That every sound or separate combina- 
tion of sounds was originally invested with a 
distinct, appropriate, and self-existing meaning. 

II. Upon the same grounds, that the slightest 
variety of inflexion, where it cannot be traced 
to a confused pronunciation, indicates a differ- 
ence of meaning. 

III. That, every sound having originally but 
one meaning, wherever it appears to compre- 
hend many, some analogy must have existed 
between them. 

In dividing, however, words into their seve- 
ral classes according to the nature of the ideas 
which they represent, much confusion has 
gei3Lerally been produced, in some instances 
by rejecting altogether the metaphysics of 



DIVISION OF WORDS. 15 

language, or to avoid a much-abused and 
ill-understood term : an investigation of the 
human mind as connected with the employ- 
ment of words; and in other cases by confining 
the inquiry to the material and external world ; 
and bringing a cloud over the subject as thick as 
^Egyptian darkness, by playing with the words 
essence, substance, attribute, accident, pro- 
perty, and all those logical terms, to which no 
definite meaning has ever been attached ; and 
which are employed about things very far re- 
moved from our cognizance ; and whose very 
existence is disputable. Instead therefore of 
classifying words according to their accidental 
form, or local position, or the imaginary attri- 
butes of matter ; and of consequently throwing 
into one confused and neglected heap, a vast 
number denominated particles, which from our 
own ignorance are unsusceptible of any other 
arrangement, it will be advisable to reduce 
them under as few heads as possible, accord- 
ing to the different states of mind, which they 
serve to represent. 

And to do this we may propose the follow- 
ing axioms : 

I^ That every simple idea, perception, sen- 
sation, or notion, or whatever other term we 
may choose to employ, is nothing but the mind 

c See Appendix (C). 



16 DIVISION OF WORDS. 

itself in a particular state; just as a piece of 
wax moulded now into a cube, now into a tri- 
angle, and now into a globe, is still the same 
wax under a different shape. Of course the 
analogy does not extend to imply the mate- 
rialism of the mind. 

II. That the mind can be but in one state, 
or be conscious of one simple idea at a time. 

III. That the succession of these states is 
regulated first by the succession of external 
impressions, and next by the law of association. 

IV. That the mind has the power of cutting 
the chain wherever it chooses ; of detaching 
from it one link, or two, or three, or as many 
as it likes ; into which power we may resolve 
the faculty of abstraction. 

V. That it frequently employs a single sound, 
or one state of mind to indicate and stand for 
any group which it has thus detached. 

VI. That every group thus detached becomes 
in language a substantive, and every member 
when considered as a part of it, becomes an 
adjective, as a tall fair man, a green spreading 
beautiful tree, a clear deep silent river ; where 
each of the groups constitutes but one sub- 
stantive composed of several ideas, which the 
mind runs through connectedly, till it comes to 
a termination ; and then breaks them off from 
the ideas which are ready to follow — a princi- 
ple which perhaps may be illustrated by the 



DIVISION OF ^^ORDS. 17 

fact, that when we convert an adjective into a 
substantive, or a concrete noun into an abstract, 
we generally denote the change of signification 
by some alteration at the end of the word, not 
at the beginning. 

VII. That whenever anyone adjective mem- 
ber of a group is peculiarly striking and impres- 
sive, it fixes the mind upon its contemplation, 
and thus becomes a substantive still connected 
with the former elements of the compound 
series. Thus, we say a man of justice, instead 
of a just man ; a tree of verdure, instead of a 
green tree; a vision of beauty, instead of a beau- 
tiful vision. — And this conversion of an adjec- 
tive idea into a substantive is instinctive ; and , 
takes place upon the same principle as one 
part of an object, or one quality amidst a num- 
ber, when contemplated through the senses, 
arrests the attention of the mind, and makes us 
pause and dwell on it without passing on to 
any other. And it is thus that the use of ab- 
stract nouns instead of concrete, is not only 
indicative, but productive of greater strength 
and energy of thought. 

VIII. That visible objects will supply us on 
all occasions with the most easy and natural 
source for analogous descriptions. The act of 
defending will be indicated by the position of 
the person before or over the object protected. 
— equality will be denoted by the supposed 



18 DIVISION OF WORDS. 

situation of the parties face to face — inferiority 
by the relation of lowness ; a state of the mind 
by a state of the body, as terror by shuddering, 
fear by paleness, cowardice by the act of run- 
ning away — so also the abstract feelings and 
operations of the mind will be expressed by the 
visible and tangible external objects which tend 
to produce similar sensations. The state of the 
mind, when uncertain how to act, will be spoken 
of as wavering, suspended, balanced — the terms 
inclined, urged on, propelled, conception, ima- 
gination, in fact the whole vocabulary, which we 
employ when speaking of mental operations, is 
drawn from matter and from sight ; and incalcu- 
lable mischiefs have arisen from this source both 
to morals and philosophy. How we are led to 
the employment of these metaphors is obvious. 
- —The range of the eye, and the multiplicity of 
the ideas conveyed by it, readily connect visible 
objects even with the most abstract notions. 
By far the greater part of these notions are ex- 
cited solely through the medium of sight. The 
states of mind produced by the physical opera- 
tions of our senses, are in very many instances 
similar, if not the same, with our moral and 
intellectual sensations. — To which we may add 
the clearness and definiteness of such ideas 
themselves : and the facility of removing any 
obscurity by the assistance of gesture and 
action. 



DIVISION OF WORDS. 19 

IX. That the mode in which words have 
passed in every language from one simple idea 
to the representation of a number, and back 
again to the simple or abstiact idea, is the fol- 
lowing : — The word in its first employment ex- 
pressed one single quality, which was taken to 
denote an aggregate of other qualities combined 
in an individual object. But by the law of asso- 
ciation, whenever a similar object occurred, the 
word would recur likewise. But the similarity 
not amounting to identity, the feature of differ- 
ence would instinctively be struck off from the 
group which the word denoted. And thus with 
every repetition of a similar object some new 
feature would be detracted, till, if the word 
was in common use, it would come to sig- 
nify nothing, but those few and remote resem- 
blances in which every single instance con- 
curred. Hence it is that the commonest terms 
are those to which it is most difficult to affix a 
precise and definite meaning, since such a 
definition can only be attained by a very ac- 
curate and extensive comparison. While at 
the same time it is in these cases that we are 
least likely to demand a definition, since the 
frequency of the repetition, and the consequent 
absence of all hesitation, deludes us into a 
notion, that the rapidity of sound is the result 
of certain knowledge. Any one may try the 
experiment by asking himself the meaning of 

c 2 



20 DIVISION OF WORDS. 

the common particles and conjunctions, which 
enter into every sentence we utter; and the 
lesson will be still more impressive, if we put 
before ourselves such words as truth, time, 
motion, action, place, freedom, and the like, 
which every one perpetually uses, and which 
very few profess to understand. 

If these axioms are true, it follows that every 
word originally expressed some one state of 
mind, which if considered with reference to 
the object which produced it, we call a quality. 
That it represented either a simple idea ab- 
stractedly, or a group collectively ; and the 
number included in that group not being ac- 
curately defined, but being sometimes greater 
and sometimes less, according to the accidental 
differences of persons and objects, from hence 
results the confusion of language, and the many 
errors which it has occasioned and sanctioned. 

Again, every word will be an idea, or group 
of ideas, detached and separated from, or consi- 
dered in connection with some other, and thus 
we arrive at one primary division of words into 
substantives and adjectives. And as all rea- 
soning when divested of its mystery is nothing 
but a succession of ideas, and we have no con- 
sciousness except when an idea is in the mind, 
or rather the mind in an idea, and these ideas, 
as before explained, must be either detached 
from each other, or run and be dovetailed into 



DIVISION OF WORDS. ^1 

each other, every word, under whatever shape, 
must ultimately be resolvable into a substan- 
tive or adjective. 

But as in the chain of our ideas many links 
repeatedly recur, which for various reasons it 
is necessary to distinguish ; since on one occa- 
sion a predicate may be applicable to them 
which is not so at another, and as these similar 
ideas or groups of ideas, are either individuals 
of the same kind, or the same individual at dif- 
ferent moments, we are obliged to set a mark 
upon the one which we wish to point out, by 
annexing to it some other idea which is found 
in juxtaposition with this one only. If a chain 
was put into my hand, of which the links were 
represented by the letters of the alphabet, and 
the letter D recurred ten times; when I desired 
to point out any one letter D in particular, I 
could only do it by subjoining another letter 
close to which it was found ; as the D which 
follows E, the D which precedes P, or the D 
which is two letters off from K. The letter 
itself being the same, and distinction being only 
attainable by creating a difference, that differ- 
ence must be sought in something externaL 
And just so in the case of our ideas. 

Again, in forming our complex groups of ideas 
it is frequently necessary to combine them of 
two or more substantives — hung together upon 
one main and central substantive. As a tree of 



22 COMPLEX SUBSTANTIVES. 

great height on the hill near the river — and the 
Greek language possesses a peculiar facility of 
throwing these accessory ideas into the form of 
adjectives. This mode of description is more 
precise and less liable to mistake, than when 
all the adjuncts are broken up into separate 
substances ; but it is less energetic, and either 
fatigues the mind by keeping it in suspense, or 
disappoints it by dragging a long train of appa- 
rently useless epithets after the principal sub- 
ject. It may also be observed, that the idea 
attached to the chief noun may be either one 
contained in it, or distinct from it — a tree of 
great height, or a tree on the hill, which may 
be expressed in Greek either by the combina- 
tion of a substantive and an adjective, or by a 
group of two substantives. So also in English, 
we may substitute a very high tree for a 
tree of great height, and in old language, a 
hill tree for a tree on the hill. But the sub- 
stantive height, expresses a quality supposed to 
exist in the tree, while the substantive hill, is 
an idea totally distinct from it. Hence it is 
that substantives are mostly employed as ap- 
pendages in descriptions of the second kind. 
Now whenever, either for the purpose of 
distinction or description, we annex a second 
substantive to a former one, we find, that in 
Greek the second is marked out by a slight 
inflexion of the primitive form of the word — by 



GREEK CASES. 23 

what are denominated cases. In English, as 
in many other tongues of northern origin, these 
cases do not exist ; and the dependence of one 
noun on another is denoted by a little prefix, or 
preposition. These prefixes exist in Greek 
likewise, and in that tongue are much more 
numerous and complicated than they are in 
ours. But in both, from the frequency of their 
appearance, and the consequent abstractedness 
of the ideas associated with them, it is very diffi- 
cult to ascertain their precise and original sig- 
nification. Some approach may however be 
made to the peculiar meaning both of the 
Greek cases and Greek prepositions, if the fol- 
lowing principles are admissible. 

I. It is very improbable that any language 
should contain two diff'erent forms for express- 
ing precisely the same thing. Synonyms are 
rarely identical, and when they are so they 
may generally be traced back to two distinct 
tongues. It is, therefore, not likely that the 
Greek cases express those relations which are 
denoted by the prepositions. 

II. If the case comprised any idea distinct 
from and superadded to the full meaning of the 
nominative, as in all other instances of com- 
pound nouns, such an addition would be 
marked by the annexation of a separate ele- 
ment to the original word. To express a com- 
plex idea we should use a compound term. 



24 GREEK CASES. 

But the cases are distinguished from the nomi- 
native, solely by a slight inflexion of the termi- 
nating sound. It is, therefore, natural to think 
that they denote nothing but the same idea 
with the nominative, slightly varied in the 
mode of contemplation. 

III. As the verb and the noun express the 
same radical ideas, with this distinction only, 
that the verb comprises also the place of the 
idea in the order of time, and the person of the 
subject, it is probable, that a close analogy 
exists between their respective inflexions ; and 
that if we find the idea in the verb placed in 
three different lights, each discriminated by a 
peculiar inflexion ; and if these three lights 
are clearly ascertained there, we may transfer 
the same notions to the inflexions of the noun, 
and try without presumption the validity of the 
hypothesis. And this becomes still more pro- 
bable when we find that the languages which 
possess cases, possess also inflexions for these 
tenses, and that where these are wanting the 
others are wanting also. 

IV. As our whole mental existence is a series 
of successive perceptions or states of mind, fol- 
lowing each other as the links in a chain or the 
letters of an alphabet ; and as there can be no 
immediate connection except between pairs, as 
A and B, C and D, let us place any substantive 
idea in all the several positions which it can 



GREEK CASES. 25 

occupy, in such a series, and examine whether 
both in nature and in number they correspond 
with the inflexions of the Greek noun. 

And first it may be observed, that in all such 
successions of pairs, the only idea which is 
presented to the mind in different shapes and 
lights is the second and final. The first link in 
the couple universally slides past under the 
same appearance. But the check which is 
given to the thought by coming to a close, 
throws it back upon the ultimate point, just as 
boys are found to dwell upon the last word in 
a sentence, when the continuation is lost to the 
memory ; and we all of us naturally linger at 
the termination of any employment. In some 
instances, indeed, a single idea is presented to 
the mind in these three different forms, as in 
exclamations of surprise, admiration, or suffer- 
ing, and the cases vary accordingly. If this 
principle be true, we should expect a priori 
that the first idea in all those pairs which, as 
substantives, are linked together, should always 
be expressed by one uniform inflexion. And 
that the second only should be subject to 
modification. And this second we should find 
would appear under two different shapes ; that 
is, it may either occur but once, or it may 
vibrate, as it were, upon itself, and be repeated 
several times. In the former case also it may 
be susceptible of two positions ; for it may 



26 GREEK CASES. 

either come full and distinct and with a sort of 
totality and completeness upon the preceding 
idea, or it may be detached from it by an in- 
terval, which may serve to suspend the mind, 
and present to it but a vague, indistinct, in- 
ceptive, and anticipated perception. 

To repeat the statement. If all our substan- 
tive perceptions occurred singly, the noun 
would perhaps admit of no inflexions of case. 
But as frequently, for the purpose of descrip- 
tion and distinction, they are placed together in 
pairs, the first of the two will occur in one uni- 
form shape, which is termed the nominative 
case ; the second will admit of three inflexions, 
accordingly as the idea occurs but once, or re- 
peatedly without extraneous interruption ; and 
if but once, accordingly as it is presented fully 
and completely to the mind, or is kept at a 
distance and suspended by any imaginary in- 
terval. Precisely in the same manner as we 
find the being, the action, or the passion repre- 
sented by the Greek verb, is placed in three 
different lights, as perfect, imperfect, or incep- 
tive. Perfect, when it occurs as a whole and 
completed unity. Imperfect, when it is con- 
ceived in duration, that duration implying an 
uninterrupted repetition of a primary idea. 
Inceptive, when it is looked forward to as 
through a vista, as something about to be done, 
or about to exist, and not yet fully brought 



GREEK CASES. 27 

before us. If it is concluded that this notion 
of substantive ideas or groups of ideas being 
connected only in pairs cannot be true, because 
frequently a whole cluster are massed together 
in the same description, as in the sentence, 
*' Cicero was killed in his litter near the sea by 
the officers of Antony ;" it is to be remem- 
bered, that sometimes the primary idea or 
nominative case is to be repeated to two or 
more sequences, and that where this is not the 
case, the sequences are themselves connected 
in couples. To acknowledge, however, that 
the mind cannot be sensible of more than one 
idea at a time, implies that their succession 
must be carried on in the manner before de- 
scribed. 

Assuming, then, as an hypothesis, the above 
explanation of the Greek cases, and remember- 
ing, that whenever we endeavour to ascertain 
the meaning and intentions of ages long since 
past away, where no positive explanation has 
been transmitted to our hands, an hypothesis 
is all that we can attain ; we might proceed to 
try its application and validity in deciphering 
the precise meaning of the combinations in 
which these cases occur. To trace it out 
through all its ramifications is by no means the 
object of the present sketch. The study of 
dead languages is principally valuable from the 
exercise which it affords to the mind ; and 



28 GREEK CASES. 

every conjecture should be left to be sanc- 
tioned or refuted by the observation of the in- 
dividual inquirer. A few hints, however, may 
be thrown out. Let the genitive case indicate 
the second of two substantives conceived in its 
unity and totality. The dative, the same sub- 
stantive as removed by an interval from the 
former, and presented as incipient and pro- 
spective. And the accusative the same like- 
wise, when contemplated as recurring upon 
itself. A single note in music may represent 
the first case ; one which, from previous asso- 
ciation, we are ready to anticipate and slide 
into, the second ; and a long-protracted, unin- 
terrupted swell may illustrate the third. 

The genitive then will take the widest range, 
and admit of the greatest variety of instances. 
It will express the second of any two substan- 
tive objects considered in the relation of rest ; 
the point from which motion proceeds, since 
amotion implies the contemplation of such a 
point in its extremity, and consequently as a 
whole ; the point to which motion proceeds, 
when the motion is made to the extreme. And 
all the varieties of substances from which mo- 
tion can be conceived to arise, will also be in- 
cluded in the same case. 

The dative again will imply an object merely 
approximating to a former — where an interval 
exists between them ; the circle within which 



GREEK CASES. 29 

a substance is contained, since there such an 
interval necessarily exists ; the point towards 
which motion is making, when such a point is 
indefinite and uncertain ; the object to attain 
which an action is performed, and the subject 
which the same action is likely to affect. The 
relation of companionship, of instrumentality, 
of similarity, and addition, will all, from the 
same common principle, be expressed in it 
likewise. 

Lastly, the accusative will express every 
object which is conceived in its property of 
extension or duration, or which from the cir- 
cumstances in which it occurs, necessarily 
dwells on the mind, and repeats without inter- 
ruption one simple and primary perception. 
In this form, therefore, will occur the lines 
which form the basis or parallel of a moving 
body, the moving body itself, the point to 
which it is moved, when considered as ex- 
tended, as in the case of motion into ; and more 
generally when it occurs to the eye again and 
again as every object must do, towards which 
we are progressively advancing ; so also the 
substance in which any change is perceived to 
take place, since change can never be perceived 
without extension; so also the parallel line of 
a substance conceived in extension either con- 
tinuous or discrete ; so too any length of time 
as well as of space. The subject of any afFec- 



30 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

tion ; the point which in quitting we leave en- 
tirely so as to vary that extension which is not 
dwelt on while the object is relatively at rest; 
and the occasional cause, or that, the presence 
of which, without any implied communication, 
produces a change in some other substance ; — 
either the attention of the person acted on, 
being supposed to be directed to the acting 
cause, or a change in one substance necessarily 
implying extension not only in itself, but also 
in the parallel which affects it. 

To adduce instances of all these uses would 
require a voluminous work ; and they are ob- 
vious and easy of access to every one in the 
slightest degree acquainted with the Greek 
language. But it may perhaps be worth re- 
marking, that the laws of mind which sanction 
this conjectural interpretation of the Greek 
eases supply us also with three primary prin- 
ciples under which all our pleasures and pains, 
however complicated and abstract, may accu- 
rately be classed. 

Into the combinations, however, which these 
cases form, the words denominated prepositions 
perpetually enter. And, although our own lan- 
guage by no means delights in elliptical ex- 
pressions, which leave out the main word in 
the sentence, that word which designates the 
relation ; nor are English hearers so acute as 
spontaneously to supply such deficiences with- 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 31 

out guide or assistance ; the Greeks, if very 
eminent scholars can be trusted, did possess 
such a power, and consequently never hesi- 
tated to employ words or combinations per- 
fectly unmeaning, omitting the preposition 
which gave light to the whole sentence, and 
trusting for the interpretation to the ready sug- 
gestion of their hearers. Whenever, in fact, an 
oblique case occurs, which does not fall in with 
the common grammatical syntax, a preposition 
is said to be understood. And in this rational 
creed we have all been brought up from our 
infancies, although even the insertion of the 
preposition could never account for the em- 
ployment of the case ; and there was no more 
reason why a particular case should occur in 
those common and obvious forms which gram- 
mar had already attempted to generalize, than 
in others more rare and perplexing. What- 
ever opinions are entertained respecting the 
real significations of these inflexions, no philo- 
sophical inquirer can doubt that some signifi- 
cations do exist independently of any other 
words ; and that prepositions are not requisite 
to invest them with an adequate meaning. 

Rejecting however this part of the office of 
prepositions ; namely, the concealment of our 
own ignorance by that most convenient of all 
technical sophisms, the term subaudito ; it may 
be worth while to frame some plausible hypo- 



32 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

thesis respecting their real nature and use. 
They constitute so very important an element 
in the Greek language ; assume such a variety 
of forms, and present such a labyrinth of signi- 
fications to the student, that the absence of 
any intelligible account of them, even in our 
most popular grammars, is, perhaps, the most 
singular defect in the whole history of philo- 
logy. The conjecture vs^hich I have ventured 
to offer on the nature of the cases, may perhaps 
have appeared too abstract and refined to be 
consistent with truth ; and it is probable that 
the same objection may occur to the following 
hypothesis. No one, however, can have stu- 
died the Greek language, even superficially, 
without observing a wonderful depth of meta- 
physical knowledge exhibited in its structure ^. 
In many parts it appears to have anticipated 
some of our latest discoveries in the science of 
mind. And whether we attribute it with a 
Scotch philologist to an artificially constructed 
system, or to gradual modifications, intro- 
duced by very delicate and refined perceptions, 
or even, as we may be tempted to think, when 
the importance of this philosophical accuracy is 
viewed in connection with the knowledge of 
which it has been made the medium, to some 
more providential circumstances ; there can be 

^ See Appendix (D). 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 33 

very little doubt, if the a 'priori reasoning je- 
commended by Locke is applicable to any lan- 
guage, it is to the Greek. In the most remote 
and depopulated countries at this very day, 
relics of art and science are frequently dis- 
covered, which irresistibly carry us back to 
some anterior period of the world, as gigantic in 
the growth of its intellectual powers, as in the 
animal and vegetable creation. And a very 
similar feeling is excited when we study the 
language of the Greeks by the light of a 
modern philosophy. What degree of know- 
ledge was possessed by those who framed it, 
we cannot tell. It might, indeed, have sprung 
out of fortuitous contingencies. But it is very 
much like finding a steam engine in the tumuli 
of Siberia. 

To return, however, to the Greek preposi- 
tions. 

If some former conjectures on the origin of 
language are correct, it would seem that these 
mysterious words must originally have stood 
for some tangible, visible, and determinate 
objects. However abstract they are at present, 
they never could be abstract in their original 
signification. Such a position is totally opposed 
to every acknowledged principle of the human 
mind. They must originally have been nouns 
—and, without any very profound investigation, 
it is very clear that they were nouns employed 

D 



34 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

to indicate place. Now, if we consider the 
mode by which we designate locality, the ana- 
logy will serve as a very easy clue to a probable 
solution of the problem. To mark out the 
place of a chair, or a table, or a book, or any 
other object, what must be done ? Some other 
external object must be taken with which it is 
in juxtaposition ; as the chair near the win- 
dow, the table by the bed, the book on the 
shelf. And if this addition of a second object 
would adequately point out the precise situa- 
tion required, no prepositions would neces- 
sarily exist in any language. But inasmuch 
as A, though in juxtaposition with B, may still 
admit of being placed in very many points and 
positions, how shall the precise locality, the 
one single point in which it exists, be accu- 
rately pointed out? Surely by naming some 
one part of B as an additional index, just in 
the same manner as when we direct a letter to 
a stranger, we annex the province to the 
country, and the town to the province, and the 
street to the town, and if it be necessary, the 
house to the street; and it may be in some 
cases even the part of the house to the number 
which indicates it. The successive ideas gra- 
dually limiting and narrowing the circle within 
which the object is to be found, until no room 
can exist for doubt or mistake. And as each 
successive idea in this case is included in that 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 35 

which preceded, and formed a part of it, so it 
is probable that the same natural process was 
observed by the original framers of the Greek 
and other languages ; and that the second 
index of locality was selected from a part of the 
principal index — ^just in the same manner as we 
now speak of horses abreast, or neck and neck, 
of beating by a head, of being placed on the 
back of a thing ; where the words breast, neck, 
head, and back, are so many substantives in- 
troduced to designate the exact position of the 
first idea in its relation to the second, and are 
themselves parts of the second. Now it is not 
an improbable hypothesis, that the Greek pre- 
positions were just as much nouns as these 
words which we know to be nouns — that they 
designated certain parts of things — that the 
names were originally assigned to those parts 
upon the same principles which have moulded 
language in general, though, perhaps, not at 
present to be traced in this particular instance. 
Unless, indeed, in the oriental languages we 
were to find that the roots of the Greek prepo- 
sitions, were expressions for parts of the human 
body, of agricultural instruments, or of any 
other visible objects, which having assumed 
the names first, would gradually, by the in- 
stinctive process of abstraction, communicate 
them to all analogous relations ; j ust as we call 
the top of a mountain its head, and the front 

D 2 



36 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

of a house its face. And if we find that the 
abstract notions thus attained, must, from the 
very nature of things be limited, or at least ex- 
tend to a certain number ; if we find that this 
number exactly coincides with that of the 
Greek prepositions; and if, on tracing out all 
their various uses, we can, by the employment 
of legitimate analogies, reduce them all under 
these primary significations, then we may fairly 
presume that the hypothesis, if not really cor- 
rect, is at least a very singular coincidence 
with a difficult and complicated cipher. 

Now every visible object must present itself 
to the eye in one of three forms — as a line, or a 
superficies, or a solid — there is no other. And 
we need not have recourse to geometry to prove 
this. A line must evidently be composed of the 
following parts, from its every essence as a suc- 
cession of points. First, there must be a point 
or part to commence from, and a point to end 
with, and a space or line in the middle. With- 
out divisibility into these portions it would be 
no line. Here then are three primary sub- 
stantive parts, to designate the locality of an 
object. But a line may be either horizontal or 
perpendicular. And those parts which are 
merely considered as extremes in the prior 
case, will naturally obtain diff'erent denomina- 
tions in the second, because the physical per- 
ceptions of ascending and descending, are 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 37 

something very different from those produced 
by traversing a plane. And lastly, the inter- 
vening space between the extremities of the 
line may assume three different appearances : 
for it may either form a portion of the same 
substance w^ith them, or it may be a different 
substance connecting them together, as a chain 
attached to two men; or it may be a chasm 
unfilled up ; the line being formed by the 
passage of the eye from point to point, and not 
created by any positive continuity of body. 
Besides these cases there seem to be no other 
existing or conceivable. Let us suppose then, 
merely for the sake of argument, that the word 
irpo indicates that point or part of a line which 
is first encountered ; that the other extremity 
has no appropriate name, unless ott/ctw be at- 
tached to it, but is expressed either by i-n^h or 
vTto, according as the perspective presents it, as 
it must do, in one of these lights. That ava 
serves for the top portion of the perpendicular 
line, Karcc for the lower, /xera for the intervening 
part, when consubstantial with the extremes; 
o-tv for the same when the medium is an ex- 
traneous body ; and utcq for the same when it is 
nothing but a space or interval. It may be 
advisable to lay no stress on any conjectural 
etymologies, though such as present themselves 
evidently favour these definitions. 

To proceed however to a superficies. This 



38 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

also, from its very geometrical essence, coupled 
with the necessary operations of our senses, 
must give us the following parts. A plain 
surface, a boundary line or circumference, a 
space inclosed within that line, and another 
space external to it. And it will also admit 
of being divided by a line drawn through it. 
Let us suppose that eVi stands for the plane, 
-jript for the circumference, ev for the interior, 
and €K for the exterior space, and ha for the 
line which cuts the plane, dividing it into two 
parts. Here also etymology is favourable. 

Lastly, let us take a solid, and we shall ex- 
tract from it the following portions. An upper 
surface, an under surface, a side, and, where 
the solid is hollowed out, two sides, a super- 
ficies fronting us, and one in the rear. Besides 
these a solid involves no primary essential 
parts. 'T^rep then, by the very sound, expresses 
the upper surface ; v^o, the under ; Trapa, the 
side ; Scf^^), the two sides ; avr), the front ; and 
what is singular, the rear is left apparently 
without any representative, since it never could 
be visible ; unless again we have recourse to 
ott/o-o), of which the etymology is obvious. All 
these respective words, if we judge by the ana- 
logy of language, must originally have ex- 
pressed corresponding portions of certain com- 
mon and familiar objects, named not from any 
consideration to their abstract relations, but 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 39 

from some prior accidental circumstances ; and 
their names must subsequently have been 
transferred to the analogous parts of other 
objects, until nothing was left to them but the 
one common abstract relation, which to us has 
been totally lost. 

In this catalogue two prepositions have been 
omitted, tt/o^ and hq. They appear to be com- 
pounded of Tcpo and ev severally blended with the 
particle <t€, which we find enter frequently into 
the designation of place. And if we consider 
that the local relation of one object to another 
must be a relation either of motion or rest; and 
that from these two cases we can only gain 
three ideas, — those of a fixed, an mcreasing, 
and a decreasing interval, we shall find reason 
to believe that these were the original significa- 
tions of 0t or Bex,, 6ev, and <re. The first being em- 
ployed when the two objects were at rest ; the 
second in the case of amotion; the third in 
the case of approximation; or, to translate 
them plainly, when A was either at B, or going 
from it, or moving to it. However abstract 
these little words, at, to, and from, with their 
corresponding particles in Greek, may seem to 
be, still it is evident, that the only ideas which 
can legitimately be attached to them are those 
which have here been mentioned, because no 
others are or can be involved in any case, to 
which they are applied, nfihq therefore will 



40 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

mean to-before, or towards ; ci?, to-in, or in 
English, into. 

From these primary significations of the 
Greek prepositions many others are deducible, 
partly analogous, and partly comprehended 
under the same term, from their uniform or 
general coincidence in fact. To have traced 
them regularly out into all their deflections 
would have been a task far exceeding the 
limits of the present observations. But after 
rigidly applying the preceding hypothesis to 
an infinite variety of cases, with a resolution to 
admit none but natural and easy analogies, it 
has been in no slight degree a confirmation of 
the theory, a confirmation which the want of 
time only has induced me to defer, that all the 
prepositions without exception, and all their 
innunerable meanings, have fallen naturally 
into their places, and that even the stubborn 
i^era, the most indocile and untractable of all, 
which starts up at one time as withy at another 
as afte7\ at another as change of place, at an- 
other as participation, — even /^era has been re- 
duced into order : 

Succubuitque jugo, et lentas admisit habenas. 

There are but two other questions respect- 
ing these prepositions which require attention. 
First, their adverbial uses, and secondly, their 
indeclinable form. With regard to the former 



GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 41 

it appears that they never deviate from their 
strictly local meaning, even in the most abstract 
combinations. And that the only difference 
between their signification v\^hen joined with 
cases, and their use when entering into com- 
pound words, is derived from the expression or 
implication of the main object, the relation of 
which to some other object they serve to de- 
note. Hapa with a noun, B, implies the position 
of A at the side of B. n^pa, in composition, 
when it signifies amiss, signifies the same A at 
the side of some other point or standard, which 
the sense of the context must supply. In one 
case the second object is specified, in the 
other it is merely suggested ; and so with all 
the other adverbial uses of the several prepo- 
sitions. 

The question why these words, if nouns, are 
not declinable, may be answered by referring 
to a preceding hypothesis respecting the mean- 
ing of those inflections of the noun which con- 
stitute its declension. Both from the nature of 
the thing, and the position of the words, it is 
evident, that those parts of the second object 
which denote the more immediate relation, the 
more precise point of locality in which the first 
stands to it, never dwell upon the mind as 
separate ideas, susceptible of different phases, 
but are introduced merely as adjuncts, and 
attached to the main noun, much in the same 



42 GREEK PREPOSITIONS. 

manner as any other initial elements of com- 
pound words, which, though formed from sub- 
stantives, never assume any variety of in- 
flection. 

The conjectures of etymologists are in gene- 
ral so unsatisfactory, and in this case of so 
little importance, if the hypothesis itself accord 
with the facts, that I have cautiously abstained 
from indulging them. But it may be worth 
while to point out the frequent repetition of 
the element ito, ita, in, and wep, in the composition 
of these prefixes ; the recurrence of the same 
element in the particle itep, and its acknow- 
ledged significations of stability, firmness, cer- 
tainty ; notions which would naturally be ex- 
pressed by the analogy of a solid plane, and, 
perhaps, of the surface of the earth. And if a 
similar element with this latter meaning was 
found in any cognate or original language con- 
nected with the Greek, it would materially 
support the conjecture. 'A[A,(pl evidently exists 
in the pronoun aV^w, and ha in h<;, or two parts ; 
jt/tera aud /^eVo^ arc also cognate terms ; a-lv, with- 
out any great demand on the fancy, might be 
connected with i^vylv; ^p^ we possess ourselves in 
the shape of for, or, more obviously, as the 
prow of a ship ; oitia-cc, out of sight, is also 
clearly to be traced; and probably the few 
which remain might find their original uses in 
some t)riental tongue. 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 43 

Upon these observations on the elements, 
which constitute the substantive groups of 
perceptions, v^hich in logic are termed the 
objects of simple complex apprehension, the 
consideration will naturally follow of the other 
grammatical inflections in the noun, which de- 
signate number and gender, and in adjectives 
the notion of comparison. 

I cannot, however, proceed in observations 
so very abstract, without again excusing its ne- 
cessity to those who are contented with what is 
generally termed practical common sense ; and 
conceive that the rules of syntax are a sufficient 
explication of grammatical constructions ; just 
as a common man perceives no mystery in the 
descent of a heavy body, because the law of 
gravitation accounts for it ; totally forgetting, 
that the principles and the facts are in such 
cases perfectly identical ; and that what we 
term laws of nature, as well as laws of gram- 
mar, are merely generalized expressions for the 
phenomena themselves. In tracing, indeed, 
the causes of things in the physical world, we 
very soon reach a point beyond which we can- 
not proceed. When we have resolved the 
chain of consequences into their immediately 
proximate links, the utmost end of human in- 
quiry has been attained. But in the mysteries 
of language we are quite sure that we are very 
far removed from any such limits. They are 



44 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

effects of which the causes must lie in the ope- 
rations of the human mind ; and there we must 
go for their explication. Unless, indeed, there 
are any persons content to shelter their own 
indolence under the plea of difficulty and inu- 
tility; and anxious to attain a conviction that 
the science of the human mind is unnecessary, 
because, like every other branch of knowledge, 
it demands patient and laborious investigation. 
And if a different class of inquirers are willing 
to acquiesce in a rough general statement of 
facts, instead of a minute scrutiny of ultimate 
principles, they should remember that such 
coarse and inaccurate views of things, instead 
of facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, in- 
volve it in tenfold perplexities. The more 
universal the principle, the more easy it is to 
imbibe. When we are placed on the pinnacle 
of the hill, we can easily find our way down ; 
but are very likely to lose our course if we start 
from any point short of the summit. And in 
the science of mind, principles, when attained, 
are, beyond all other rudiments of knowledge, 
invaluable, from their unlimited application to 
all the diverging operations into which they 
run, whether moral, intellectual, or physical. 

Starting, then, on this voyage of discovery, 
without any presumption of final success, and 
only resolute to persevere till we have ap- 
proached as near as possible to the pole, we 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 45 

may venture to propose the following conjec- 
tures on the mode by which we acquire our 
notion of number, principally with a view to 
explain some apparent anomalies connected 
with it in the Greek language. 

When we use the expression, very common 
in metaphysical writers,*that we possess in our 
minds an idea of number, such an assertion is 
very likely to mislead. Of the word number, 
that is, of the sound, we have, indeed, a very 
distinct perception : but of number abstract- 
edly we can have no idea ; any more than we 
can have an abstract idea of motion without a 
moving body, or extension without some ex- 
tended surface, or of time without a succession 
of individual perceptions. 

Let us, then, suppose a blind man suddenly 
called into existence, and a sensation of warmth 
excited in his mind : if, the moment this sensa- 
tion ceased, his consciousness was extinguished, 
it is evident that he would not have acquired 
any idea of number. Again, suppose that the 
same individual could exist in any number of 
perceptions, however multitudinous and va- 
rious, and yet those perceptions, or states of 
mind, were perfectly insulated and detached 
from each other by intervals of suspended con- 
sciousness, it is equally evident in this case as 
in the former, that no idea could be obtained 
of plurality. Every perception would be to 



46 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

such a man a point in existence without any 
series connected with it either by memory or 
anticipation. 

Let us take a third case. Suppose by any 
means the human eye, without any interrup- 
tion from muscular sensation, could be made to 
convey to the mind the idea of an unbroken 
plane of colour, in which various shades and 
gradations melted secretly and imperceptibly 
into each other, as in the expanse of the hea- 
vens, in which the deep blue of the centre 
slides quietly into the light of the horizon ; 
here again it seems certain, that although the 
state of mind produced by such a transition 
would in reality be very different, of that differ- 
ence there would be no consciousness, and 
consequently no notion of number. 

Now, seeing in this last case the ease with 
which the mind falls imperceptibly through 
a series of states, but very slightly changed or 
inflected, let us suppose a fourth case, in 
which, being differently constituted, it would 
pass with the same facility into states the most 
opposite and remote from each other. And 
here also it would seem, that although in each 
sequence the feeling would be different, the 
difference itself would be imperceptible. We 
should no more perceive a distinction between 
the colour green and the colour white, than be- 
tween two imperceptible gradations of an aerial 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 47 

tint. And that such would be the case is evi- 
dent from experience. For we never think of 
comparing, that is of observing distinctions 
between ideas which fall naturally in with our 
existing train of association. It requires effort, 
and attention, and care, to discriminate at all ; 
and if our minds were originally organized as 
we can now mould them by habit, to slide 
easily into any series of states however diffe- 
rent, we should never have attained any notion 
of distinct perceptions, and consequently none 
of number. 

The confirmation of this might be drawn out 
to a great length, but it may be easily traced 
by each individual for himself; I merely wish 
to infer the conclusion that our whole per- 
ception of distinction arises from that law of 
mind which renders its operations the very 
reverse of that just supposed ; which gives it a 
tendency to pass on into one sequence in pre- 
ference to another ; and which makes us sensi- 
ble of a difference solely when this anticipated 
sequence is checked or broken. 

And this law may be reduced under two 
heads. 

First, a tendency of the mind, when uninter- 
rupted by other external impressions, to repeat 
and vibrate upon the same idea. 

And secondly, a tendency to run into any 
series of states, however dissimilar, which have 



48 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

once been dovetailed into each other by re- 
peated association. 

So that we may arrive at a notion of dis- 
tinction, and consequently of plurality, by two 
methods. 

Let a plane, of which half is painted black, 
and half white, be placed before the eye of an 
infant. If its mind can be fixed steadily on 
the contemplation of one colour (and be it re- 
membered, the idea of a plane is nothing but a 
repetition of similar points of colour running 
into each other, and generating lines by the 
duration of the vibration or impression, after 
the removal of the primary causes, just as a 
stick on fire, when whirled round in the air, 
describes a continuous circle) ; if, I say, the 
child's mind, or perhaps its eye, can be made 
to repeat consecutively, for a certain number of 
times, the perception of this one colour, it will 
acquire a tendency to continue the idea, and 
when that tendency is checked by the occur- 
rence of another colour and perception, it will 
immediately become conscious of a difference ; 
it will attain the notion of two colours, or two 
states of mind. If the two colours were pre- 
sented to the eye with such an interval be- 
tween them as to allow the entire cessation 
and dying away of one perception before the 
other occurred, no distinction would be per- 
ceived between them. And if any one doubt 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 49 

this, let him endeavour to perceive the dis- 
tinction between any two notes of music, or 
any two shades of colour, or any two sensations 
either of the touch, or the smell, or the palate, 
without bringing them closely into juxtaposi- 
tion, and he will ascertain its impossibility. 
Such an attempt involves in fact a self-con- 
tradiction, for it presupposes a perception of 
relation, without the existence of relation ; the 
discovery of a difference in a single term ; and 
a comparison between two states of mind, when 
we are conscious of only one. 

Let us suppose then that a man born blind, 
and brought into the world for the purpose of 
the experiment, was made to taste an acid, 
and immediately afterwards a sweet, or to have 
his hand transposed, without interval, from a 
fire to an ice pail, he would even by these two 
perceptions, and the intervening sensation, 
although instantly annihilated upon them, have 
obtained a notion of difference, of number, of 
succession, and, consequently, of time. 

If his eyes were opened and permitted to 
traverse a plane divided between two different 
colours, excluding all intervention of muscular 
sensation, he would in this case also attain to 
the notion of two units, and two only, whatever 
might be the extent of the coloured surfaces. 
But the greater the extension of the first, the 
stronger would be his perception of difference 

E 



50 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

in passing into the second ; since by a pri- 
mary law of the mind our tendency to repeat a 
perception increases with the repetition itself; 
and the sensation of interruption is exactly 
proportioned to the strength of the tendency. 
If, therefore, a plane was divided between 
three colours, each of equal extent, the per- 
ception of difference at passing out of each, 
would be equal likewise. And as the extent 
was diminished, this perception would propor- 
tionately fade away. Until, if reduced to a 
single line, the mind would dwell on it so little 
as scarcely to be sensible of any distinction be- 
tween the two surfaces divided by it, and would 
run them both into one. Thus to a savage a 
man on horseback would present but a single 
unit, since the eye would easily pass over the 
faint shadows which marked the separation. 
Let those shadows, however, be expanded into 
any considerable space by the removal of 
the man, and the substances would imme- 
diately become two. The mind would be 
checked and thrown back when it came to the 
terminating lines, first of the man and then of 
the space intervening. And as it is the sensa- 
tion of this interruption which conveys to us 
the notion of number, we should more naturally 
say that the man and the horse were two, than 
the man and the space between them. It need 
not be observed that whether we discriminate 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 51 

between two simple sensations, or between 
two compound units, the several parts of which 
have been blended together by frequent asso- 
ciation, the process is precisely the same. The 
perception of distinction, and consequently of 
number, is in this latter case, as in the former, 
produced by some check given to the mind 
when running through its chain of ideas; either 
by the absence of some expected link, or the 
presence of one unexpected ; though, perhaps, 
this second mode may be resolved into the 
former. If we saw a buoy floating in the 
water out of sight of land, and having accu- 
rately collected together all the ideas which it 
conveyed, were then to be shown another pre- 
cisely the same, that is, producing no alteration 
or break in the series into which we should 
naturally fall, we should not conceive the exist- 
ence of more than one : we should pronounce 
them identical. But if the first buoy had pro- 
duced five ideas, and the second suggested 
only four, the check thus given to the mind in 
its progress into the fifth, would make us 
sensible of a difference, we should say there 
were two buoys. And whether the link defi- 
cient was part of the buoy, or a mark external 
to it, but locally inseparable, as the shore near 
it ; whether it occurred in the second, or was 
perceived in the first, when recurred to from 
the second, the process would be precisely the 

E 2 



52 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

same ; so that our notion of number may uni- 
versally be resolved into that sensation pro- 
duced by a check in our anticipations. It 
cannot exist without the perception of simi- 
larity, and of difference, nor without the notion 
of time. And thus it is that we more readily 
class together numerically groups of objects 
which affect us in a similar manner, than those 
which are very distinct ; that in counting, an 
army for instance, we form our units from the 
men rather than from the men and the horses. 

Without remembering that there is a wide 
distinction between existing differences and 
existing numbers, and the mode by which we 
become conscious of them, these observations 
will appear frivolously and vexatiously minute, 
and perhaps self evident.. But the vagueness 
with which these operations of the mind are 
usually described is productive of much mis- 
chief. And when any phenomena are to be 
explained, it is always desirable to do it by 
ultimate principles, however simple and ab- 
stract. The subject might be illustrated very 
diffusely, and not without utility in connection 
with the fine arts, very many of which involve 
rules founded entirely on this process of the 
mind. But at present we have only to apply 
it to certain apparent anomalies in the nume- 
rical inflections of the Greek language. 

And first it may serve to explain why the 



INFLECTION OP NUMBER. 53 

dual number is natural and philosophically 
correct, since no comparison can take place 
except between pairs. And the moment we 
get beyond this point, if we wish to form any 
positive idea of number, we are soon lost and 
confused, and must be content with a vague 
sense of unchecked progression, instead of any 
clear and definite notion. And this is evident 
to every one ; for we are perfectly unable to 
count, except by creating artificial difierences, 
and such differences as will singly and severally 
imply all the units which have gone before, 
without the necessity of actually retracing 
them. Thus in counting the strokes of a clock, 
either with our fingers, or by employing the 
sounds which represent numbers : if we used 
but one finger to beat with at each stroke, we 
should immediately become perplexed ; but 
by taking them in succession, each denotes the 
exact place of the stroke which it represents; 
and the words three, four, five, six, and the 
rest, act in the same manner. We have our- 
selves at each change a perception of two units 
only ; and never could retain those which had 
yjreceded, unless, with the mark of each as it 
was added, we were able to combine a mark of 
their place in the numerical order. 

Secondly, the phenomenon of a neuter plural 
nominative, and sometimes even a feminine or 
masculine, coupled with a singular verb, may 



54 INFLECTION OF NUMBER. 

be thus explained. For fixed inactive substan- 
tives (and this is evidently the signification of 
the neuter gender) naturally permit the mind 
to form them, though distinguished by lines, 
into units. We are checked much less in pass- 
ing the eye from one house to another adjoining- 
it, than in running through a number of sub- 
stances, v^hich either are or have been seen in 
motion. And hence, v^henever the neuter noun 
in Greek expresses a living being, the verb 
reappears in the plural. So also probably 
v^hen the substances are not continuous, but 
discrete, as in Homer : Ka.1 ^ lov-pa, o-eo-TjTre veSv, kcu 

a-TVccprcc XeXvvroci. B. 135. 

Thirdly, whenever a number of individuals 
are massed together, as an army, or a crowd, 
or where they are spoken of collectively in any 
relation which does not necessarily imply an 
interval between them, the whole compound 
group thus formed by the same kind of easy 
transition as before described, becomes a single 
unit ; it will be expressed in the singular 
number ; and whenever the predicate is the 
result of their combined forces only, the verb 
will be in the singular likewise. Whereas, if 
the predicate be an attribute which is discern- 
ible in each individual, the verb will be in the 
plural. When an army repulses an enemy, the 
verb is singular : when the same army are said 
to be brave, the verb is plural. 



INFLECTION OF NUMBER. ^5 

Fourthly, as dual nouns are sometimes 
coupled with plitral verbs, on the principle that 
the genus is included in the species ; so in 
some peculiar instances the case is reversed, 
and plural nouns, or more than two individuals, 
as subjects, are connected with a dual verb. 
And it need scarcely be observed, that in this 
case the subjects, however numerous, are con- 
sidered under two heads, and reducible into 
two divisions. Thus Homer, addressing four 
horses, speaks of them in the dual, because 
they were coupled in pairs ; and so also of the 
sailors who are ordered to furl the sails and 
take down the mast, because in all probability 
this operation required their separation into 
two bodies. 

To these principles several apparent excep- 
tions may possibly occur : but by the admission 
of exceptions generally so much mischief is 
produced, in accustoming the mind to careless 
views and inaccurate modes of thinking; and 
the precision of the Greek language is so mi- 
nutely and invariably philosophical, that every 
effort should be made to reduce such anoma- 
lies ; and even abandon, if unsuccessful, the 
theories which refuse to include them. No 
notion is more common among younger stu- 
dents, than that words may be used indiscrimi- 
nately ; that a possible sense is the real sense ; 
and that the meaning is first to be imagined, 



56 INFLECTION OP GENDER. 

and then the language distorted to suit it : a 
principle which is obviously destructive of all 
rational canons of interpretation, and all the 
interest of philological studies ; but v^hich must 
continue to prevail till v^^e remove as far as 
possible the chapter of exceptions from our 
grammars. 

The nature of those inflections, v^hich in the 
Greek and other languages distinguish the 
genders of nouns, has been accurately ex- 
plained by others ; and is itself so obvious as 
to require but little illustration. 

No one can have examined the structure of 
the Greek noun, both substantive and adjective 
(for in fact they are essentially the same, and, 
as before observed, differ only from their acci- 
dental position, as separate or connected v^ith 
others), w^ithout perceiving that they are evi- 
dently constructed from uninflected roots of 
various terminations, united to the words which 
have become known to us in a separate form, 
as the article and pronoun. To trace this prin- 
ciple through all the apparent irregularities of 
the declensions, would require an elaborate 
discussion : but to assert it in the most quali- 
fied manner, it is at least highly probable ; and 
it explains the cause of an essential distinction 
on this head between modern and classical lan- 
guages. The gender of a word is essentially 
marked out by its composition in Latin and 



INFLECTION OF GENDER. 57 

Greek. In the English, and many other 
tongues, it is still left to the caprice or associa- 
tion of each individual. That the freedom of 
our own language in this respect gives great 
scope for the fancy is very obvious. Poetry is 
never so delighted as when embodying ab- 
stractedness and inaction in living and breath- 
ing motion ; and the whole energy of personifi- 
cation frequently depends on the selection of 
the gender. 

But where the inflections of case were at all 
regulated by the generic character, perplexity 
would frequently be occasioned from the want 
of an obvious classification under which to 
refer nouns. And Grecian poetry sufl'ered less 
than many others from the restrictions imposed 
on its powers of animation and creation : en- 
riched as it was by mythology with a multi- 
tude of invisible agents already invested with 
reality. 

The principle, however, which guided the 
Greeks in their generical distinction of nouns 
was precisely the same as that which influences 
ourselves and all men in their daily personifi- 
cations of inanimate objects. Whether fixed 
in the language, or left open to variation, the 
rule was still laid down in the laws of our 
natural associations. We discriminate every 
moment between dead, motionless, and passive 
substances, and such as are instinct with action 



58 INFLECTION OF GExVDER. 

and animation ; and the peculiar ideas and 
associations which arise from the relation of 
the sexes immediately suggests a subordinate 
division of active beings. The existence of 
any quality or analogy primarily perceived in a 
man, or a v^oman, or an inanimate substance, 
would classify the object which contained it as 
masculine, feminine, or neuter. As we apply 
the word horse to distinguish other substances, 
in which the notion of strength, magnitude, 
and consequent coarseness is involved, as a 
horse chesnut, a horse radish, and even a horse 
laugh ; so the word which primarily denoted, 
perhaps, an individual man, was applied to 
everything endued with the characteristics of a 
man. And thus too in the other genders, 
strength, activity, preeminence, duration, and 
other derivative attributes, were designated by 
the masculine noun, or what is become to us 
the pronoun, oq. Weakness, fragility, the object 
of affection, the principle of production and 
nutrition, dependence, subjection, in short, 
every feeling and idea which flow from the 
relation in which woman stands to man, would 
be in like manner indicated by the name of 
woman. And the analogy of all languages is 
curiously consistent in applying these two 
sounds respectively, as they exist in Greek, to 
the several qualities thus naturally coexistent. 
Lastly, under the head of neuter nouns would 



INFLECTION OF GENDER. 59 

be placed everything considered as merely 
passive, as useless, sometimes as contemptible, 
but in a greater degree than when the feminine 
attribute is annexed ; and in general every ob- 
ject to which no definite notion was attached, 
to reduce it under either of the previous heads. 
Three usages of the neuter gender may be 
mentioned, which are curious not from their 
peculiar employment in Greek, but from their 
frequent appearance in other languages. First, 
its signification of a diminutive, even when the 
primary notion is a living being ; and this 
^sometimes in contempt, sometimes affection- 
ately. A nurse talking to her baby, and De- 
mosthenes thundering against ^schines, would 
equally divest their subject of all pretensions 
to vitality and action. The phenomenon, per- 
haps, may be thus accounted for. The notion 
of power, which we derive entirely from the 
perception of principles of motion, naturally 
involves that of dignity and value ; and the 
opposite characters will be easily designated 
by the opposite analogies. And if we look into 
the constitution of our nature, we may find an 
explanation of our tendency to neutralize the 
objects of affection; either in the frequent con- 
nection remarked by Burke between minute- 
ness, delicacy, beauty, and consequently love, 
and the natural association of diminutiveness 
with inactivity and helplessness; or perhaps 



m INFLECTION OF GENDER. 

still more deeply within us, in that mysterious 
attraction which the littleness and dependence 
of an object exercises on our sympathy ; a 
principle which, if fully developed, might illus- 
trate the most singular prodigy in the whole 
history of man ; his proneness to create objects 
for worship out of brutes and inanimate sub- 
stances. 

A second usage of the neuter gender, found 
principally in the tragedians, and designating 
the first person, is curious, but obviously natu- 
ral; since the parts of the body are, separately, 
inactive, and would be considered in that light 
when referred to as signs of the existence of 
the man himself, or the essential part of his 
nature. 

A third case in which it is employed, is to 
express animated beings, particularly in the 
plural number : ra tcAtj tSv AaKe^aiiAonav, instead of 
the magistrates, as we speak of the court of St. 
James, or the Ottoman Porte. And generally 
in such instances something is predicated of an 
office, or relation, rather than of the individuals 
who fill it ; and the relation itself is naturally 
expressed by some one of its circumstances, 
without necessarily implying action. And this 
particularly holds good where the office is per- 
manent, and its occupiers shifting. The cabi- 
net instead of ministers, and the pulpit instead 
of the preacher, are metaphors common on the 



INFLECTION OF GENDER. 61 

same principle. Other cases might be ad- 
duced of a similar kind : but they easily occur 
to the student, and may probably be all ac- 
counted for and reduced to some general prin- 
ciples. The anomaly of nouns masculine in 
one number, and neuter in the other, might 
probably be brought under the observations 
before made, respecting the inflections of num- 
ber. Thus in Latin to those who believed in 
the fixedness and stability of the firmament, 
ccelum v^ould be the natural word to express it; 
while those who conceived the heavenly bodies 
to be set and whirled round in a number of re- 
volving spheres, ccelos would be the appropriate 
term. And the same conjecture might, per- 
haps, be applied to many instances in Greek of 
a similar nature. For it never can be repeated 
too often, that grammatical rules are not 
founded on caprice or whim, but, like all other 
effects of human agency, spring from some 
cause in the human mind. And to be satisfied 
with a technical word as an explanation of a 
phenomenon, without tracing the fact back to 
its primary source, is a much more mischievous 
proceeding, than to tax the imagination for a 
clue which, if it does not satisfy the reason, 
may at least exercise the understanding. Every 
thing must have a cause, and to ascertain these 
causes is the business of philosophy, whether 
working on the physical operations of nature, or 



62 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

the inflections of a dead language. The process 
in both is precisely the same ; and it is to pre- 
pare the mind for the one pursuit, that we ex- 
ercise it in the other. 

The inflections which have hitherto been con- 
sidered of gender, number, and case, are com- 
mon to both adjectives and substantives; and 
in grammatical language they agree in them ; 
or, as it is expressed with greater impropriety, 
the substantive governs the adjective. The 
real cause of this apparent harmony will be 
obvious, when we observe the mode in which 
the same word performs the transition from 
one class of terms to the other. In English, 
having no inflections of the kind, no such con- 
cordance takes place; and whether we gain by 
the variety of terminations, which this want 
permits to us, or lose by an occasional obscu- 
rity, may be a difficult question to solve. 

If a previous observation on the distinction 
between substantives and adjectives be correct, 
if they are respectively the same word repre- 
senting the same quality, or group of qualities, 
and assume an independent or connective cha- 
racter solely by the relative position which 
they occupy in the mind ; a single horse in 
shafts, to use a common illustration, indicating 
the substantive, and the same horse in a team 
acting as an adjective, it is a natural question, 
by what means they have become so widely 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 63 

separated, both in the Greek and in other lan- 
guages, as to form two distinct classes of 
words. And the process is the following. It 
has before been remarked, and it is too well 
known to require remark, that from the want 
of a separate sign for each single object, we 
are frequently obliged to denote an individual 
by the word which designates a class ; that is, 
by some quality which is in no way peculiar to 
it, but is found in many others. We wish to 
describe the thing which contains our pen and 
ink, and we call it a stand. To reduce the 
number of objects, within which it may be 
found, still farther, we add to stand, a word ex- 
pressive of certain other qualities, ink ; and 
thus the doubt is limited to those things only 
in which these two circumstances are found 
united. Precisely in the same manner, when 
we wish to direct persons in discovering the 
author of an action who is known to ourselves, 
but not to them, we describe him first perhaps 
as an acquaintance ; then, if this is not suf- 
ficient, as an acquaintance living in such a 
country ; and, if this is not enough, as an ac- 
quaintance living in such a country, and of 
such and such character. And thus we con- 
tinue adding circumstance to circumstance, 
until a certain number are accumulated, which 
collectively are applicable to but one indi- 
vidual. It may also be observed, that in form- 



64 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

ing these primary distinctive combinations, 
which, if we choose to employ logical terms, 
we may call species composed of genera and 
differentiae, we seldom employ more than two 
members, as ink-stand, lamp-oil, writing-book, 
tea-chest, and the like ; and that the rest of 
the designation is performed by the article, 
with some other adjuncts, not immediately 
blended with the principal or generic index. 
As this process is perfectly natural and in- 
stinctive, it is not surprising to find it employed 
by the Greeks : and the first difference which 
they selected in order to limit the number of 
individuals, within which the object to be spe- 
cified was to be sought, was the word which to 
us has become the pronoun and the article, but 
which assuredly in its primary use signified a 
man, a woman, or some passive inactive object. 
The union of the radical quality with the quali- 
ties designated by the pronoun substantive 
(which at that time it must be remembered 
was no pronoun at all) served to indicate the 
individual in which alone these two series of 
elements were found. And when a farther 
specification was required, the same process 
was repeated ; and the same pronoun was not 
again subjoined, but prefixed, in order to mark 
out the exact individual. This prefix to us is 
the article, and its peculiar uses will occur 
hereafter. Thus the word kux would express 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 65 

the first object, A, which . affected the mind 
with a feehng of beauty. And if no second 
object occurred which produced the same re- 
sult, this A would not require the annexation 
of any other word to the former to specify it 
accurately; kocx would be a substantive. But 
when many objects of the same kind occurred, 
as B, C, and T>, A would require to be pointed 
out by some feature of difference. This differ- 
ence the Greeks took from the real or imaginary 
gender. If the qualities denoted by the mas- 
culine, for instance, were found united with 
the radical quality in one individual only, no 
farther difference would be necessary ; and Kaxl^, 
a beautiful man, would be as much a substan- 
tive as /cax was before. But when the number of 
things in which this union occurred increased, 
then some new attribute, or even many, were 
selected to single out the unit intended. And 
without such an attribute /caXo^ became an ad- 
jective. The faet is still more obvious in the 
proper names of the Greek language, which 
still retain their adjective form, and substan- 
tive use, even in some cases without the article. 
The terminations tas, tudo, and others in the 
Latm language, and ity, 7iess, hood, and the like 
in English, are employed in the same manner, 
in the same relative place, and for the same 
purpose, as the generic noun in Greek. As Ka,\, 
a quality found in many things, comes to de- 



66 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

note an individual by the annexation of o?, a 
man, to it ; so quantus becomes quantitas ; simi- 
lis, similitudo ; chaste, chastity ; good, goodness ; 
man, manhood. The nature of these latter ter- 
minations, without a knowledge of the Saxon 
and Celtic languages, it is impossible to trace. 
There is no reason to suppose that they neces- 
sarily classified universal terms under the 
heads of gender ; and perhaps they served to 
form some more subordinate division, as the 
feminine termination in Greek is used with the 
article to denote a particular science, or virtue, 
as species of feminine things, generally recog- 
nised and familiar. 

But the principle of formation is evidently 
the same ; and no difficulty can arise from the 
variety of terminations in the Greek noun, 
whether oq, tj, ov, uq, ev;, tq, 1, 73?, '/jp, or a, since all these 
are reducible to primitive forms of the same 
generic or pronominal substantive. These con- 
jectures, if correct, will assign the philosophical 
cause of the general agreement in combination 
between the substantive and adjective, in gen- 
der and number, and their universal agreement 
in case. Since the sign of the main object 
described enters necessarily, from the structure 
of the language, into every member of the de- 
scription ; and as all these members are simul- 
taneously coexistent in it, it will appear in 
each under the same form and position, and be 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 67 

placed in the same case. But as the associa- 
tions which influence the designation of gender 
and number may vary in a moment, in these 
the agreement is sometimes interrupted ; mas- 
culine adjectives being connected with neuter 
nouns, and singular nouns with plural adjec- 
tives. The same principle will also remove 
the necessity of considering those numerous 
expressions as elliptical in which the adjective 
occurs alone, or merely coupled with the ar- 
ticle. The termination which denotes the gen- 
der being in fact if not a substantive, at least 
the sign of that abstract substantive for which, 
in English, we employ the word thing, and 
being already included in the same term with 
the adjective quality. It is quite as dangerous 
to trust a grammarian with an ellipsis, as a 
stranger with the power of filling up blank 
drafts, or a rhetorician with rhetorical figures 
and poetical licenses. And it would confer a 
great benefit on all young students if a short 
piece of composition were shown them in 
which advantage was taken of all these ima- 
ginary forms, and their consequent absurdity 
demonstrated. In the infancy then of the 
Greek language, and probably of every lan- 
guage, the same primitive sound performed the 
reciprocal duties of adjective and substantive. 
In the English extensive traces of this structure 
still remain ; but in Greek they are nearly obli- 

F 2 



68 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

terated : and a line of demarcation has been 
drawn between the two, which in many cases 
it is impossible to pass. A tendency to a 
similar discrimination is visible in our own 
tongue : and the mode in which it is effected 
is well deserving consideration. By simply 
casting the eye over the pages of a Lexicon, 
even the most moderate scholar will intuitively 
class the nouns which occur as substantives or 
adjectives. Some he will be assured are never 
employed as adjectives, others never as sub- 
stantives ; and the terminations will serve as 
his guides. The inflections, therefore, of the 
primary idea, are the instruments by which 
this distinction has been eff'ected. And they 
have eff'ected it by means of the additional 
ideas denoted by them; and which, by their 
very essence, erect the elements to which they 
are annexed into independent nouns, or reduce 
them into epithets. 

The elements which inflect the radical so as 
to form a necessary substantive are /^, o-, and t. 
They constitute very prominent and important 
features in the Greek vocabulary, and their 
general significations are familiar to every 
student. The words in which they occur are 
usually supposed to be derived from the pre- 
terperfect passive of the verb; but it would 
perhaps be more correct to consider the two as 
collateral stalks from the same root. Each 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 69 

involves certain ideas which may be termed 
verbal, but the latter contain some v^hich are 
not included in the former, and the addition of 
which in the participle of the preterperfect 
enables the noun to reappear as an adjective. 
noiVa and iremiriiA.evov arc two very distinct words. 
The former must always be a substantive from 
the notion implied in its penultimate /* : the 
latter contains the same ideas precisely, but 
something else besides, indicated by the redu- 
plication and the termination €voq ; and this ter- 
mination enables the idea conveyed in ^o/ry/Aa to 
become attributive. 

This will become very obvious if we consider 
that a substantive word expresses any idea or 
number of ideas, which, either by perception 
or abstraction, we insulate and detach ; that it 
does this by the sign of one single quality con- 
tained in that number (for in compound sub- 
stantives the initial elements, though united 
in the same word, are evidently as much 
adjectives as if separately marked by the 
generic inflection), and that this quality or 
attribute, whether generic or any other, natu- 
rally infers the existence of some substratum 
which supports it; since, from our incapacity 
of seeing into solids, the frequent change of 
external shape and colour in objects whose 
materials are yet unaltered, and, in fact, from 
the very relation which exists between the 



70 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

sentient substance of our mind and its states 
and objects of perception, qualities are to us as 
so many coats or coverings spread over some 
supporting material, w^hich v^e can only sup- 
pose to exist, but can never perceive ; and 
which stands in the same relation to the quali- 
ties which invest it, as canvass to paint, or a 
table to its covering 

To trace minutely the origin of this uni- 
versally received notion is not necessary. But 
it is evidently an inference drawn from analo- 
gous perceptions, and not a matter of fact pro- 
position. It is obvious, however, that a word to 
indicate this substance, or matter, or vXv}, divested 
as it is in our minds of all qualities, must be 
divested of all qualities itself. And the diffi- 
culty, if not impossibility of framing such a 
word, induced the Greeks and others to indicate 
its existence only by attributes as abstract as 
possible, though by no means so abstract as 
was required — those namely of gender. Still 
the union of the particular quality with the ge- 
neral quality of gender, served but as a sign for 
the substance in which they were supposed to 
exist. The word which contained them re- 
mained essentially an adjective, and became a 
substantive solely by its accidental appropria- 
tion. How then was the essential character of 
a substantive given to an attributive word ? 

It is quite obvious that this can be done 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 71 

solely by abstracting the quality; that is, by 
placing it in any light in which it must at least 
seize the attention apart from the notion of any 
other substance. And in such a distinct and 
separate form a quality does appear when we 
see any change taking place in an object, by 
the operation of some efficient cause. When 
we minutely examine the ideas conveyed to 
the mind by any individual case of action and 
passion, we shall find that they are all re- 
solvable into the perception of some new quality 
appearing in a substance; gradually and con- 
comitantly with the presence of some other 
substance. This quality, by its novelty, irre- 
sistibly seizes the attention, detaches itself 
from the others to which it has just been an- 
nexed, assumes a substantive form, and, from 
the necessary analogy of motion to a definite 
point, is designated in Greek by the letter i^, 
which almost invariably possesses this precise 
signification. And no equally correct and phi- 
losophical mode could be devised by which 
to express an indefinite substance as recipient 
of some new quality, than by that new quality 
itself with the additional notion of its recent 
annexation. In the same manner if we ob- 
serve the state of our mind when watching a 
process by which some change is to be eff'ected, 
that is, some new attribute to be attached to a 
substance, we may observe, that the attribute 



72 FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 

itself exclusively occupies our thoughts, and 
that there is a perpetual tendency to anticipate 
it. Expectation precedes reality : and an ex- 
perimental c J mist is always ready to declare 
that the changes in his liquids have taken place 
long before they actually occur. And hovs^ is 
this process denoted in Greek ? by the sign of 
the same quality in a substantive form, and 
inflected by the insertion of the letter o-, w^hich 
in the verb, and in many other combinations, is 
demonstrably the index of inceptiveness, of 
tendency to, of something future and expected. 
And for the <t in Greek the r is substituted in 
Latin, when the process of production is de- 
scribed, just as in the inceptive verbs ; what is 
o-eiw in one language, becomes rio in the other. 
Natiira, factiira, qucestiira, are the analogous 
forms for viwria-K;, itorrjo-i^, ^-/^ttjctk ; as factuyno cor- 
responds to 'KOifia-ela, aud faCturUS to 'KOi-qaccv. 

Lastly, a similar method was observed in in- 
dicating the cause of a change ; and the agent 
was denoted by the sign of the quality pro- 
duced, inflected by the letter t, which occurs in 
the particle ^ev, and many other words in the 
signification of motion from a place. 

It will readily be allowed, that these conjec- 
tures on the precise and original meaning of 
those nouns which indicate the agent, the action, 
and the thing done, are very abstract and re- 
mote fr..m their present obvious employment. 



FORMATION OF SUBSTANTIVES. 73 

Their exact accordance, however, with the 
natural process of the mind, their uniformly 
substantive character, their subsequent inflec- 
tion by genders w^ithout altering this character, 
and the abstract character of the thing signified, 
demonstrated by the universal applicability of 
the sign, are all strongly conducive to the same 
result. That the first inflection by /^ should 
be susceptible of three genders, that by t of 
two, and that by o- of the feminine only, is per- 
fectly consistent with what might be expected. 
The result of an action is of course open to any 
farther notion of activity, passiveness, or neu- 
trality. The agent can never be considered in 
the contradictory light of a non-agent. And 
the action in all probability is marked uni- 
versally by the feminine from the metaphorical 
notion of production. 

These principles might, if pursued farther, 
supply rules for tracing the gradual ramifica- 
tions of words in Greek through their several 
parent stocks. But at present it is sufficient 
to observe, that the three forms above men- 
tioned are the only essentially necessary sub- 
stantives in the language ; that all others 
become so accidentally, by the combination of 
qualities which infer the material on which 
they are engrafted. And that these combina- 
tions are sometimes expressed at full length, as 
avBfccTtcx;, a mail ; sometimes formed by an adjec- 



74 INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 

tive and the article, as rl Ka\Lv, sometimes ellip- 
tically implied, when the gender has been by use 
appropriated to particular substantives, as -jroXt- 
tiich, aper-ri, OY avl§la, — but iu all of thcsc, whcthcr a 
noun is understood or not, there is no ex- 
pression corresponding to the English word 
thing, which constitutes our universal substan- 
tive. The termination of the gender and the 
article, indicate in themselves nothing but 
qualities, and the substratum is only implied. — 
In the cases of verbal nouns above mentioned, 
the genders also represent qualities, but the 
attribute on which they are grafted is essen- 
tially and necessarily a substantive. 

Without a minute knowledge of the lan- 
guages from which the Greek shot out, it is 
impossible to ascertain with precision the sig- 
nification of those inflections which distinguish 
the varieties of adjectives. Whether the cases 
are formed by the addition of any extraneous 
element to the radical term, or merely by a 
change of pronunciation, may perhaps be 
doubted. But with respect to the penulti- 
mate inflections of adjectives the question is 
hardly admissible, and we may feel assured, 
that if the same process was pursued in classi- 
cal philology which has been applied by 
Home Tooke to English etymology, the result 
would be in the same manner a still more 
minute analysis of forms apparently most 



INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 75 

simple. A priori reasoning is in this case very 
fallacious, for the modifications of which an 
attribute is susceptible, seem to be limited by 
no natural principles. And the frequent sub- 
stitution of one mode for another, whether 
adopted for the preservation of euphony, or 
suggested by existing affinities, leaves us with- 
out any fixed standard to apply as a test to 
conjectures. An hypothesis therefore can do 
little more than attempt a rough classification 
of adjectives under a few general heads, with- 
out presuming an exact conformity in their 
various uses. 

First then we may describe objects either 
by their positive or negative qualities — and 
the latter class of terms are used in two senses, 
to express sometimes the absence of a quality, 
sometimes the presence of an opposite. In 
the former sense it is evident, that they must 
always maintain an attributive form, and be 
combined with some substantive either ex- 
pressed or implied, since negation abstractedly 
can never act as real existence. 

Positive qualities may be subdivided into 
those in which existence only, and those in 
which motion is implied. The latter class 
comprehending all verbal adjectives. — These 
again are either active or passive, and the ac- 
tive either transitive or intransitive. And as 
action which passes on to some subject termi- 



76 INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 

nates either in a mere affection of it, or in pro- 
duction, the Greeks appear to designate the 
former case by the termination po<;, the latter by 
f^av' — ^"Kd^epoq, a man acting mischievously ; (po^e^lq, a 
man causing flight ; Xiy.fipoi;, causing hunger ; hxeplq, 
working treacherously : but jvuiaccv, producing; yvS- 
(A.a,i — ^pd^i^uv, producing reasons; or (ppcc—ixevjixuv, pro- 
ducing pity. The termination iko<;, appears also 
to be employed occasionally in an active but 
intransitive sense, to signify a tendency to an 
action or state ; just as we employ the word 
like in English. — But its verbal nature seems 
to depend not upon itself but on the word to 
which it is subjoined. 

Of passive verbal adjectives there are three 
obvious terminations to?, reo?, and o-;^o^ — The first 
applied to the subject of an action finished, the 
last to a subject capable of being acted on, 
and the intermediate reo; conveying the notion 
of duty — corresponding respectively to the tus, 
bilis, and ndus, of the Latin language. But the 
active and passive senses are so frequently ex- 
changed, that the line of distinction cannot be 
drawn with any accuracy. 

Another class of words, essentially adjectives, 
are those which are employed as substitutes 
for second appended nouns in the genitive or 
dative case. And they seem divisible into two 
heads, according as they are employed for the 
one or the other. The termination tvo? appa- 



INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 77 

rently corresponding with the former, and that 
of io^ with the latter — pihvov eXcclov, naturally im- 
plies oil made of, or from roses ; pohela raivla,, a fillet 
made in roses. — And thus perhaps ,o? comes to 
denote the attribute of place and also of time ; 
xapa5f*o?, opviq a bird in, or inhabiting a torrent ; 
r^iraio<; Terapraiot;, in OY on thc third or fourth day. 

The last class which may be mentioned, are 
those which annex to the quality some index 
of its relative quantity. 

Where the existence of the quality merely 
in a slight degree is expressed, in English by 
the termination 3/, or in vulgar language ish, as 
fiery, handsomish, reddish, watery, the Greeks 
seem to employ </<f? and eo^ — where its exist- 
ence in a great and generally offensive degree 
is to be marked, as the Latins used osus the 
Greeks have recourse to ^Stj? — where the stand- 
ard of comparison is a number of individuals, 
the penultimate is distinguished either by a re- 
duplication, or a combination of consonants 
which arrest the pronunciation. — And that this 
is a perfectly natural mode of expressing great- 
ness of degree, is evident from its perpetual 
employment by ignorant people and children ; 
who either repeat the word, or lay an emphasis 
on its penultimate, whenever such a notion is 
to be conveyed. 

And lastly, if the standard is a single unit, 
the particle rep is introduced, or the word is in- 



78 INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 

fleeted in ^wj/.— -This latter termination is probably 
Oriental, and the former Celtic. Of rep, which 
occurs in erepo<;, and in many words of northern 
origin, the signification of difference seems ob- 
vious — and probably it might be traced into 
the numerals with the same sense to direct its 
application. It is evident that our perception 
of equality, like that of similarity, is obtained 
by a very complex mental process : that is, by 
finding no link deficient in a chain of antici- 
pated ideas, which we have previously ac- 
quired by experience. In the case of simi- 
larity the links appear to be severally different; 
in that of equality they are repetitions of the 
same primary perception. — One house is like 
another when the majority of ideas called up 
by each are respectively the same — a line is 
equal to a line, when the number of sensations 
produced by the muscular action of the eye in 
traversing them is checked in each at the same 
point ; and as these sensations are very slight, 
and cannot accurately be marked and retained 
in the memory, hence it is scarcely possible to 
attain a notion of equality without bringing the 
two lines into a close parallel. — In the case 
also of simple qualities, as tastes, smells, co- 
lours, and the like, the perception of equality 
in degree is only possible when either to the 
senses or the memory the two sensations are 
brought close together; and the transition 



INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 79 

from one to the other is marked only by a dif- 
ference in place or time. If no such difference 
exists, the several perceptions melt into one. 
An increase, however, or diminution of degree, 
instantly constitutes a difference, in the same 
manner as any two perceptions, however dissi- 
milar, are distinguished in the mind ; that is, 
by breaking and checking the associations. — 
And hence the propriety of marking such a 
change of degree by the sign of difference 
attached to the index of the quality which ex- 
ists positively in both units. This also may 
explain the use of the comparative degree with 
the genitive case in Greek, and the adjective in 
Latin — since the transition from the first per- 
ception to the second would be marked ex- 
actly in the same manner as motion from any 
one place to another. And the distinction is 
still farther marked by the particle n, which 
answers the same purpose as the English or, 
and seems to draw a line of demarcation be- 
tween the two objects divided by it. A vul- 
garism in the English language is very analo- 
gous to this use of 'ri,—this man is better nor he, 
is not an uncommon provincial expression. — 
The phrases la-oq kou, ceque, ac, and the like, are 
to be explained in the same manner; by the 
tendency which the mind has in the case 
of equality to run the two perceptions into 
one. 



80 INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES. 

Two phenomena seem worthy of attention 
in the use of the comparative degree. 

First, the absence in very many languages, 
perhaps in all, of any peculiar inflection to de- 
note diminution in degree, as well as increase; 
and secondly, the essential character of attri- 
butiveness which the comparative bears. 

The first may perhaps be accounted for by 
the natural tendency of the mind to fix and 
dwell upon the object which produces the 
strongest impression ; and consequently to 
make it the first term in the enunciation of the 
comparison. 

The second evidently arises from the fact, 
that although a combination of qualities, or 
even a single quality, as in the designation of 
the Deity by the term Good, may be sufficient 
to mark out a substantive to which they are 
exclusively appropriate, no such accurate de- 
signation can be performed by a word which 
essentially presupposes the existence of the 
same qualities in other objects — unless those 
objects were confined to two, and the term of 
comparison marked the increase of degree in- 
stead of merely distinction. Neither of which 
suppositions exists in reality. 

Under the head of substantives and adjec- 
tives are evidently to be ranged two classes of 
terms usually described as adverbs and pro- 
nouns. 



THE ADVERB. 81 

Of the adverb it is obvious, that it is the ad- 
jective of the adjective ; and is employed to 
express any modification in the quality of the 
substantive. Hence it occurs principally in 
words descriptive of magnitude or degree. — 
And in English it is possessed of a peculiar 
termination, ly, which is usually supposed to 
be a corruption from like. In Greek it appears 
generally to be the case of an adjective — the 
dative when the first quality is supposed to be 
contained in the second ; just as substances in 
ordinary languages are said to be contained in 
figure, and any object to be comprised and 
surrounded as it were by the quality which ap- 
pears on its superficies — the accusative, proba- 
bly in its old termination w?, and sometimes 
also in the singular, when the model or fashion 
of the action or affection is considered — after 
such a pattern, according to such a method, a 
signification which is inherent in the accusative, 
and requires no ellipsis of a preposition to be 
supplied. The neuter plural of the adjective, 
which is sometimes termed an adverb, is per- 
haps universally to be reduced under the ordi- 
nary principles of grammatical arrangement, as 
a noun with the substantive suppressed. And 
the same observations may be applied to many 
of the adverbial inflections in the Latin lan- 
guage. That the adverb, properly so called, as 
marking an attribute of an attribute, must be 



82 THE PRONOUN. 

originally an adjective, is obvious from its very 
nature. And if this proper and peculiar sense 
of the word be adhered to, we must at once 
exclude from the class to which it is applied, 
every term which is not reducible to such an 
origin ; and either leave the infinite number of 
signs, whose etymology is unknown, in a heap 
by themselves, with an acknowledgement of 
our ignorance, or bring them back by careful 
inquiry into their proper places as substan- 
tives, verbs, participles, pronouns, or which is 
more common, combinations of several of these 
terms. 

The next element of language to be ex- 
amined, is the pronoun ; and there is no one 
more interesting and curious, both from its own 
metaphysical character, and the accurate ana- 
logy which on this point runs through every 
variety of dialect. 

It is perfectly evident, that all our percep- 
tions are conversant with individuals; and it 
may also be assumed, that when we reason with 
abstract qualities, though the signs of them are 
applicable to classes of things, in reality our 
notions are still confined to the individual qua- 
lity. As these individuals resemble one ano- 
ther in many points, it is necessary to have the 
means of distinguishing them ; that is, of fixing 
on the unit to which attention is to be directed, 
and calling the mind of the observer from all 



THE PRONOUN. 83 

others of the same class. Either one circum- 
stance, or a combination of circumstances, is 
therefore to be selected, which is appropriate 
and peculiar to it, and constitutes its difference. 
The selection of this difference, and the extrac- 
tion of what is logically termed the essence of a 
compound substance, is the result of a very 
long, complicated, and ingenious process of 
reasoning, in nine hundred cases out of a 
thousand. In many it is utterly impossible. 
And if the constitution of things did not supply 
us with the means of obtaining external differ- 
ences by which to mark out individuals, instead 
of analyzing their intrinsic elements, we should 
soon be reduced to extreme perplexity and 
ignorance. Place, therefore, is the natural, 
obvious, and general mode of distinguishing 
individuals ; and accordingly we find it em- 
ployed every day, where no single and distinct 
sign has been previously appropriated : and no- 
where is its usage more conspicuous than in 
the original names of persons and families in 
our own language. It is also obvious, that we 
require these differences of place for the pur- 
pose of communication only. They are the 
external aids by which we draw the attention 
of others to a point on which our own attention 
is already fixed. And lastly, it is clear that 
the place or second sign which we select, must 
be known and permanent ; and that it may be 

G 2 



84 THE PRONOUN. 

assumed either within ourselves, or external to 
ourselves. The tower of London, Demosthenes 
the Athenian, the tree on the lake, are in- 
stances of the second kind. And the former 
kind is exhibited in the pronouns. 

Now, as in every communication there must 
be at least two individuals, and individuals of 
the same species, it will be necessary to dis- 
tinguish them ; that is, as before observed, the 
speaker must have some means of fixing the 
attention of the hearer on the one which he 
wishes to designate. Any description of its 
qualities is perfectly useless, since the object 
itself is placed before the senses. A single 
gesture, or motion of the hand towards the 
point to be specified, would be the instinctive 
and easy method. That such gestures are per- 
fectly natural, is obvious from our frequent 
employment of them. We have an instinctive 
tendency to touch every thing which occupies 
our senses. A child grasps at every object of 
sight. A clown begins to handle every thing 
within his reach. And if such familiarity was 
not checked by the decorum of society, we 
should seize by the buttonhole, or clap upon 
the back, every person to whom we addressed 
ourselves, just as we put our hands to our 
breast when speaking of ourselves, or point to 
our own bodies when prohibited from speaking. 
No illustration is necessary to show that a 



THE PRONOUN. 85 

motion of the hand to our own body is instinc- 
tive and natural when speaking of ourselves; 
and a motion of the same hand from our body 
when our attention is directed to a person ad- 
dressed. But motion, and muscular motion 
especially, affects the voice. And certain mo- 
difications of sound respectively accompany 
gestures, as necessarily and universally as they 
are attached to the sensations of pleasure and 
pain. The pantomime of the deaf and dumb 
will show at once that the organs of speech are 
moulded differently when the arm is drawn to, 
and thrown from the body. And we may ob- 
serve the same fact in ourselves, when we de- 
scribe any action which admits of these gestures 
being employed with sufficient violence to mark 
the distinction. That the letter i^, which enters 
largely into the first person, is descriptive of 
a point to which motion is directed, and the 
letter o- of motion in progress, is evident from 
the whole structure of the Greek language. 
The frequent confusion which occurs there be- 
tween the elementary signs of the second and 
third person, that is, between a-, and r, is also 
perfectly natural on this hypothesis, since very 
little distinction of gesture is perceptible when 
pointing to an object external to ourselves, 
whether it be an individual addressed, or a 
third separate substance. That the notions of 
agency and passiveness are not the primary 



86 THE PRONOUN. 

significations of the pronouns, as Gebelin sup- 
poses, is evident from their frequent intermix- 
ture in the formation of the verb. That some- 
thing very abstract, and of universal applicability 
was intended, is clear from the absence even of 
generic distinctions in the signs of the first and 
second person. And it is also obvious in vs^hat 
manner modifications of motion, ideas of action 
and passion, and numerical symbols, would na- 
turally be expressed by similar elements with 
the pronouns of the first, second, and third 
person. If these pronouns were originally 
formed in the manner presupposed (and the 
exact coincidence of these facts with the hypo- 
thesis at least renders it probable), it might be 
a subject of curiosity to inquire by what ana- 
logy these pronouns in so many languages are 
irregularly formed ; and by what laws they 
became in Greek and Latin the basis of inflection 
in the cases, and are still inflected in our own 
and other tongues, when all other nouns remain 
unchanged? But without a very extensive 
acquaintance with other languages, the search 
would be impracticable. 

The pronouns, therefore, of the first and se- 
cond person, were signs which severally marked 
the individual speaker, and the one addressed ; 
and were equivalent to, and coincident with 
certain gestures which designated the place of 
the person specified. But as in all cases of 



THE PRONOUN. 87 

communication, two points at the least are fixed 
and known, we may employ them as local 
marks to distinguish any units which are ex- 
ternal to them. And as all gestures which in- 
dicate place are made by the arms, and their 
number and position divide the whole field of 
vision clearly into two portions, we find that 
there are two pronouns in language, this and 
that, ovroq and eVeTVo^, hie and ilk, to designate an 
individual by its position relatively to ourselves. 
To these, the Latins have added iste, to mark 
locality in relation to the second person, and 
%vro<; in Greek, as opposed to oSe, sometimes 
seems to bear the same meaning. 

It need not be observed that eV and o-i/ are 
necessarily substantives, from their being seve- 
rally applicable to one individual. Whereas 
ovroq and iKehoq arc either adjectives or substan- 
tives, according to circumstances — substantives, 
when the union of the locality and the gender 
are sufficient to mark out the individual — adjec- 
tives, when some other attribute requires to be 
annexed. And hence many differences be- 
tween the Greek and English idioms ; in the 
latter of which the pronoun this or that can 
rarely be a substantive, from its abstract and 
simply local character. 

When an individual has once been fixed and 
described, it is frequently requisite to recall 
the attention of the hearer to it. And as the 



88 THE PRONOUN. 

repetition of the description would be tedious 
and unnecessary, it is superseded by the em- 
ployment of a sign which suggests it again to 
the mind. To do this, such a sign must neces- 
sarily be very abstract, since it is to be appli- 
cable to an infinite variety of subjects ; and yet 
not so abstract as to embarrass the hearer in 
throwing him back upon former associations. 
And since the process is to be performed by 
association, it is evident that the sign must 
be something previously connected with the 
individual alluded to. It must be part of 
some former chain of ideas, or by the laws 
of our mind it never could serve to recall 
that chain. A sign thus constituted is found 
in all languages, in the words which indicate 
gender. He, she, and it, is, ea, id, tq, ri, %, are 
signs perfectly indistinct in themselves, but 
which nevertheless are known to indicate some 
one individual in the speaker's mind, because 
words are never used without some such proto- 
type. The hearer is immediately thrown upon 
his search to find out the object intended. That 
it is something known to himself is certain, 
since we never voluntarily employ words in- 
capable of suggesting the ideas required. That 
it has been lately subjected to his observation, 
is natural ; since otherwise the speaker would 
not anticipate its recurrence. And the index 
of the gender, while it limits the field of search, 



THE PRONOUN. 89^ 

serves also to recall the notions with which it 
was previously connected. The same distinc- 
tion which was made between the adjective 
and substantive use of tvroq and eKem?, may be 
applied to the pronoun 'k. In Homer, in the 
dialogues of Plato, and in many other Greek- 
works, it is a substantive. In its adjective form 
it generally appears as the article. Sometimes 
the individual has been already described ; and 
its use is purely relative. Sometimes it has 
been presented to the speaker only, and a fuller 
definition is appended to it for the benefit of 
the hearer. Sometimes no such definition is 
added, and it remains as r)q, leaving on the 
hearer an impression that some one individual 
was intended, without any knowledge of the 
one specified. Hence the use of ri^ as an in- 
terrogative. A question, in fact, being merely 
the expression of an opinion in a doubtful form. 
The principal differences between the Greek 
and English idioms, in the use of the article, 
arise from the generic character of the Greek 
pronoun, and the absence of such a character 
in the English the. Hence the article in Greek 
may be used with prepositions, with adverbs, 
with participles, and with adjectives ; where, 
in English, no such phrase is admissible, ex- 
cept under peculiar circumstances, where the 
nature of the adjunct acts as the generic in- 
flections. Thus we speak of the goody the 



90 THE PRONOUN. 

vicious, the indolent; but never of the wooden, 
the watery, or the metallic. The nature of the 
quality in the former case restricts the ap- 
plication of the predicate, in the latter not. 

To enter however into an analysis of all the 
different usages of this important word would 
be vain without adducing examples, and al- 
most superfluous after the minute examina- 
tion which it has received from others. Its 
nature as connected with the structure of the 
language is all that is here alluded to, and in 
this it is curious to observe its analogous for- 
mation from the pronoun in such a number of 
lanofuas^es. 

Of the relative 'k it is scarcely necessary to 
observe, that it is the same pronoun. And as in 
Latin the relative qui is perhaps formed from /<«*, 
and is; so in Greek the connecting particle re is 
found attached to k and other pronouns in the 
Homeric dialect, though subsequently it was 
dropped. And here also there is a close analogy 
to be observed in the English language, in the 
evident formation of who from he, — The pro- 
nominal forms in fact, from their very nature, 
are those which have run out into every variety 
of dialect with less alteration in their structure 
than any other words, and they are of themselves 
a sufficient proof of the identity of the source 
from which language originally sprung. 

As the pronoun 'k is in itself a relative, that 



THE PRONOUN. 91 

is, as it signifies something which has been 
previously mentioned or suggested; so it enters 
into many relative adjectives. Its dative case ro), 
seems to be the origin of ro7o<;, in perfect consist- 
ency v^ith the general use of that case to indi- 
cate the standard of comparison. From the 
same element, with a-, inserted as the sign of 
number, roVo^ appears to have sprung. Though 
perhaps both -roVo^and iVo? may be merely a redu- 
plication of the same pronoun to express iden- 
tity. And from the genitive of toVo?, too-oSto? prob- 
ably arose, in which perhaps the genitive of an 
adjective of number serves as the measure of 
quantity, from the close analogy between the 
two notions. The immense number of particles, 
which in combination with prepositions and 
conjunctions it has thrown off under various 
forms, deserve well the attention of the philo- 
logist. — They have created no little confusion 
in the principles of Greek composition, by 
giving shelter to technical explanations of diffi- 
culties, which are only supposed to be ex- 
plained because we are ignorant of the means 
resorted to. It is considered a satisfactory so- 
lution of a phrase in which the Latin subjunc- 
tive occurs, to say that it is governed by ut. 
Whereas, as Home Tooke has clearly shown, 
ut is merely the pronoun on. "iva., %a, ioq, perhaps 
the hypothetical particle e*, certainly eVe*, e^ce*, 
and many others, are nothing but the pronoun 



92 THE VERB. 

in particular cases and combinations : and can 
no more govern a subjunctive mood, than the 
original noun itself. Uoq appears to have been 
the adjective form of r)q — and the numerous 
compounds of o? and r)^, or v^hat are usually 
called the definite and indefinite pronouns, 
seem to be employed only as more precise 
substitutes for the original rk, to mark out a 
particular individual, but to indicate at the 
same time that he had not been previously de- 
scribed. From oq also is formed avrog, or in a 
literal translation, he again; from the particle av, 
— 'Avroq, consequently, is used sometimes as the 
mere pronoun — but more frequently the repeti- 
tion of the individual serves to throw the mind 
back upon it v^hen passing on to others of the 
same species, and thus distinguishes and sepa- 
rates it from the rest. Hence a man is said to 
act avrU, when he does it by himself, without 
assistance, or spontaneously, without compul- 
sion. So also when an action is unproductive 
of any results, avruq is employed ; and the addi- 
tion of the article serves to indicate identity, on 
the same principle as A is said to be the image 
of B, or, when the likeness is still more strong, 
to be B himself. 

The most important part, however, of the 
Greek language is the verb, and its considera- 
tion necessarily involves an inquiry into the 
nature of those complex forms of speech which 



NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS. 93 

are denominated propositions. The following 
conjectures are hazarded with great diffidence, 
but may perhaps throw light on the subject. 
It does not appear then that a logical proposi- 
tion has anything to do with the comparison 
of ideas. — It asserts the connection of two 
ideas either simple or complex, but not their 
similarity or difference. — Either the term com- 
parison does not mean here what it does else- 
where, or it is most improperly applied. — To 
suppose that the assertion Ccesar is dead, infers 
any resemblance between Caesar and Death, is 
a notion too absurd to be refuted. When we 
pronounce upon the truth or falsehood of a 
statement, then, indeed, there is a comparison 
implied, between the ideas suggested by the 
words and those excited by the external ob- 
ject, — and a statement is true when the two 
trains coincide, and false when they differ. 
But in itself a logical proposition expresses 
simply the connection of two ideas in the 
mind, or two qualities in a subject. 

When these propositions are expressed in 
words, and not before, it is very important to 
observe that they branch out into two kinds, 
one in which the second term, or predicate, is 
included in the sign which stands for the sub- 
ject, the other where it is merely connected. 

The first class are necessary, the second con- 
tingent. — And as no one simple state of mind 



94 NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS. 

can include another, and all our perceptions 
when analyzed are simple, it is evident, that to 
us there can be no necessary proposition respect- 
ing matters of fact, no proposition that is, which 
we may not conceive to be otherwise. — And it 
is also obvious, that whenever the predicate is 
included in the subject, this inclusion takes 
place by virtue of the signs which we employ. 
The word which stands as the subject indicating 
a number of ideas, one of which separately, and 
under a different symbol is placed in the pre- 
dicate. Again, as demonstration is nothing 
but the showing that the two terms of a propo- 
sition are necessarily blended, that is, that the 
second cannot be detached from the first ; and 
as this takes place only where the hypothesis 
of language has included one in the other, it is 
most important to remember that we can have 
no demonstration except by words, and of 
words. — And it is equally important to see, 
that the impossibility of doubt in necessary 
matter, and its possibility in contingent matter, 
arises from the physical formation of our 
minds, which cannot be in two different states 
at the same moment; though they have the 
power of checking themselves in following up 
a train of perceptions, and breaking off any one 
link from another. — That very many necessary 
or identical propositions do not appear so to 
ourselves is very certain. And in these cases 



NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS. 95 

the difference in the signs which we employ, 
acts in the same manner as a difference in the 
ideas themselves. — But it may safely be as- 
serted, that wherever a proposition is presented 
to us which we cannot conceive to be other- 
wise, its predicate has already been included 
in the subject. Its validity depends upon hy- 
pothesis : and its inference is purely verbal. — 
The very momentous and practical conse- 
quences which flow from this principle, if cor- 
rect, are well worthy of serious consideration. 
At present it is merely stated in reference to 
certain grammatical constructions. 

The difference between the formation of a 
complex substantive, consisting of many con- 
nected perceptions, and the enunciation of a 
proposition, is simply this ; that in the latter 
case the mind breaks off one link in the analy- 
sis, and fixes upon it in a separate form. — And 
the principles which influence us in this selec- 
tion, are the same which draw and attract our 
attention to any quality or substance amidst a 
group. 

These principles are three, novelty, plea- 
sure, and pain. — And hence we do not express 
our connected perceptions in the shape of pro- 
positions, except where the predicate or quality 
fixed on is new, or agreeable, or painful. The 
exclamations of a solitary individual talking to 
himself, are confined to these three heads. — 



96 NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS. 

Hence it is that we never take the trouble to 
enunciate propositions which are self-evident, 
or obviously identical ; or which are known to 
the hearer. Hence it is that a traveller de- 
scribes the objects which he sees, solely in re- 
lation to his own feelings of surprise or satis- 
faction. And the want of interest sometimes 
perceptible in narratives, and of clearness in the 
arguments of the most learned and gifted men, 
arises from the suppression of many proposi- 
tions which are too familiar to be noticed by 
the speaker, though perhaps unknown to the 
hearer. The illustration of the fact may be 
left to the personal observation of every one. 

As the predicate then, or quality which ar- 
rests the attention, is thus detached from the 
subject or group with which it is perceived to 
be connected, the separation is marked by a 
break in the sense and the language, that is, 
by the apodosis. But as such a break might 
seem to imply two distinct and unconnected 
perceptions, it would be perfectly natural, when 
the second term was enunciated, to subjoin 
some element which would refer to the former, 
— and would in fact repeat it. Such an element 
is found in the pronoun.^ — A savage expressing 
his perceptions does naturally talk in this man- 
ner — '' sun, it, rising ;" '' this wine, it sweet;" 
** Sambo, me good;" or, *' man, he wicked." — 
And this appears to be the explanation of that 



FORMATION OF THE VERB. 97 

curious phenomenon in the Greek language, the 
formation of the verb from the attribute and pro- 
noun ; a fact which having been led to anticipate 
a priori, I have since found fully developed in 
the celebrated work of Valckenaer. In addition 
to many other difficulties explained by this 
analysis of the verb, it may be worth while to 
notice the natural formation of the passive 
voice from the accusative of the pronoun ; the 
various significations of the middle voice, ac- 
cording as the termination stands for the dative 
or accusative ; the analogy between the impe- 
rative of the Greek and those English vul- 
garisms, in which the word it is attached even 
to intransitive verbs ; the identity of the verbs 
in /xi, and the Latin forms with those in w ; the 
formation of inflections in the verb, to designate 
number and person, from inflections previously 
existing in the pronoun ; and the falsity of that 
hypothesis which makes verbs impersonal, or 
conceives that in any case an ellipsis of the 
nominative or subject could exist, such an 
ellipsis being totally opposed to all the princi- 
ples of human reason. 

From the explanation here attempted of the 
formation of propositions, it is easy to see the 
mode in which the verb became susceptible of 
various accidental modifications. In its original 
and essential form it is nothing but an attribute 
coupled with the pronoun. When the person 

H 



98 FORMATION OF THE VERB. 

indicated by the pronoun has been previously 
designated, it forms in itself a whole and per- 
fect proposition. When this has not been 
done, a fuller description is subjoined in the 
subject or nominative case. And even the 
position of the pronoun at the end of the attri- 
bute, as if its annexation v^ere an afterthought, 
seems illustrative of the fact. In all this there 
is no necessary notion of time, of action, of 
passion, or even of being; except inasmuch 
as the existence both of the subject and predi- 
cate, at least in the mind of the speaker, is 
essentially comprised in the enunciation of the 
terms. The verb of being is in no way neces- 
sary to a proposition. It is perfectly super- 
fluous, as expressive of existence ; and perfectly 
accidental, as indicative of time : and however 
abstract its meaning is at present, originally it 
must have been as complex as any other verb at 
present existing. And yet that the notions of 
time, of agency and of passiveness, and many 
other modes of being, are attached to the verb, 
is indisputable. And the solution of this phe- 
nomenon lies in the nature of the principles 
which influence our selection of the predicate, 
by fixing our attention on some one quality 
rather than on others. A fact, that is, a con- 
junction of two perceptions, must be, in some 
degree, new in order to surprise or aff'ect us. 
The second term must be one unexpected; con- 



FORMATION OF THE VERB. 99 

sequently it must be capable of existing sepa- 
rately from the subject. The subject must 
have before been perceived without it ; and 
thus the notion of time is immediately conveyed. 
So also action and passion are very generally 
indicated by the verb ; because motion of any 
kind, change of any kind, naturally arrests the 
attention. To remark that the fields were 
green in the middle of summer would be ridi- 
culous ; but every one makes the statement at 
the beginning of spring. No one but an idiot 
would think it necessary to inform another that 
the Alps were in the same place as they were 
a thousand years ago ; but of a body capable 
of motion, this might naturally be thought wor- 
thy of mention. The observations made by a 
child, or indeed by any one, when surveying 
a landscape or travelling, would form the best 
illustration of these principles. And since every 
fact or conjunction may ultimately be conceived 
capable of separation (for even identical pro- 
positions rest upon hypotheses and arbitrary as- 
sumptions, which may be denied if we choose), 
it is perfectly natural to mark the time at which 
they appear, and to make a distinction between 
the state of a thing at the present moment, and 
the state which it either has been in before, or 
may be in hereafter. The precise moment at 
which a king dies, or an earthquake occurs, is 
noted down upon the same principle. And 

h2 



100 INFLECTIONS OF TIME. 

thus even necessary propositions are expressed 
with reference to the present time only, though 
the connection appears indissoluble when the 
hypothesis, which supports it, is allowed. 

It is also perfectly natural that the notion of 
time should be attached to the predicate or 
verb, because it is this which is conceived to 
be the variable term ; and which suggests the 
notion itself. Hence in the Greek, the Latin, 
and the modern languages of Europe (for it is 
not safe to extend the observation beyond the 
little field which is open to our own personal 
knowledge), the verb is inflected to mark the 
time. And what is very well worth notice, it 
is generally inflected so as to make but two 
divisions, the past and the present. And the 
future is either formed by the insertion of some 
other verb, or is evidently to be ranged under 
the present ; both from its uses, the nature of 
our perceptions, and the analogous character of 
its inflections — / strike, I struck, I will strike, 
rvitrco, ervTtroy, rv^pco. Thc susccptibility of a qua- 
lity, or tendency to it, seems to be spoken of as 
a quality existing at present ; and, / am going 
to strike, is the literal translation of rvrpco ; the 
letter o- answering the same purpose as the je 
vais of the French, and our own verb of motion. 
And if we consider what is meant by the time 
of an action, it may perhaps lead to a conjec- 
ture respecting the nature of the Greek aug- 



GREEK AUGMENT. 101 

ment. As we mark the place of an object in 
space by the object to which it adjoins, so we 
mark the place of a fact in the order of time 
by the fact or perceptions which are imme- 
diately connected with it. We cannot indeed 
date as present time a perception which is 
actually present to the mind, because it is itself 
the standard of all other time. But we do say 
that such perceptions take place in present 
time as closely follow on some one other per- 
ception, which recurring again and again at 
very little intervals, seems to be, in some de- 
gree, a fixed and permanent mark. This mark, 
however, is a floating point, and varies every 
moment in its relative position. And as the 
enunciation of our perceptions implies their 
present existence in the mind, it is perfectly 
unnecessary to subjoin the date, when such 
present existence is intended. But a fact is 
said to take place in past time, when it was 
closely conjoined with some one other fact not 
at present existing. In this case the second 
fact is a fixed and immutable point, known and 
determinate, but described or not, according to 
circumstances. And such a point might very 
naturally be marked by the old pronoun of the 
third person, e, which indicates some object or 
conjunction not now present, but known and 
consequently past. Whether the hypothesis is 
worth notice may be left for the consideration 



102 SCHEME OF TENSES. 

of others. But it is curious that the Latins 
who want the augment, want also the definite 
article, which came from the pronoun ; and 
employ the pronoun itself but rarely and re- 
luctantly. 

The primary division then of the inflections 
of the Greek verb, would naturally be formed 
from present and past time. But under each of 
these heads occur several other inflections or 
tenses, which are wanting in our own and in 
some other languages ; and it is important to 
settle their precise signification and number. 
And this may perhaps be done. by referring to 
the respective analogies of the Greek adjectives 
and the Greek cases. 

For if the verb is merely an adjective, or 
attribute in a difi'erent combination, it will 
naturally be capable of the same modification. 
Thus both the verb and the adjective may be 
classed under the three heads of active, passive, 
and neuter. And the subordinative modes of 
action or production; the relative connection 
between the quality and the subject ; the ten- 
dency to a state, and the repeated perception 
of a quality, are marked in each by distinct and 
frequently similar inflections — thus eco seems to 
express merely the existence of the quality — 
w an action — ^w, oa, and lua, production as ex- 
hibited severally in the creation of a substance, 
or of a quality; and of a quality accordingly as 



SCHEME OF TENSES. 103 

it is intimately or superficially connected with 
the subject — the termination aBu would seem 
analogous to that of the superlative degree, and 
might bear perhaps a similar sense — <r6<« indi- 
cates the tendency, and ctkco the same tendency 
in an incipient state — and very nearly the same 
notions are to be found in the inflections of the 
adjectives. 

A different classification of adjectives may 
therefore supply us an analogous distribution 
of the tenses, and this has been attempted 
already. For we may describe an object by its 
negative or positive qualities, and its positive 
qualities may be either such as really exist, or 
such as are capable of existing — and those 
which really exist, may be subdivided into ab- 
solute and relative, accordingly as they are con- 
sidered in themselves, or with reference to a 
prior state of the object. We may describe the 
night as starless, or starry, or clouded, or ter- 
rible — a fruit as unripe, or ripe, or ripened, or 
edible — and a tree as lifeless, or green, or 
blighted, or shady. It need scarcely be ob- 
served that the negation of a quality naturally 
implies its supposed prior connection, either in 
the same or a similar object ; and thus we may 
describe an object, either by a quality which it 
no longer possesses, which is past and gone, or 
by a quality which it possesses absolutely, or 
by one which has been superinduced on it, or 



*^ 104 SCHEME OF TENSES. 

by one which it is capable of possessing or 
producing. And when we turn to the Greek 
tenses, we shall find these four divisions accu- 
rately marked by distinct inflections; and where 
the nature of things permits, a perfect set of in- 
flections severally assigned both to past time 
and to present. The analogy of the Greek cases 
would lead to a similar conclusion. For the re- 
currence of the mind to a qualit}?" no longer per- 
ceived in an object, its perception of an existing 
quality, and its anticipation of one to come, are 
three operations of the mind precisely similar 
to those by which an object is perceived in its 
unity and totality, in its extension, and in its 
prospective position. On a quality no longer 
perceived, we cast as it were but one glance, 
and no more — on one which is obvious to our 
senses, we dwell with reiterated perceptions — 
on one which is to come, we look forward as 
through a vista, with a sort of suspense and 
pause, anticipating its appearance. And these 
are the notions which have been assigned to 
the Greek cases, and which at least will serve 
to explain all the curious phenomena con- 
nected with them. The observation of the 
student will be sufficient to show him that some 
such analogy does exist between the tenses 
and the cases from some of their respective 
combinations in instances of dates. The im- 
perfect tenses running with the accusative, and 



Active. 



PRESE 



r Absolutely. 

flMPERFECT.< r ' a v 

^Relatively. { Ta!?",' -* 



TVTrrio, verbero, 
I am beating. 

verberavi, 
beaten. 



<1 <l Inceptive. 

5 

^Perfect. 



Tv\l/(t), verberabo, 
I am going to beat. 



r Absolutely. 
^Imperfect. < 

(_ Relatively. 



> 

^ <{ Inceptive. 



Perfect. 



^ rvTTTb), verberem, 
^ I may be beating. 
5 TSTv^u), verberaverim, 
( I may be having beaten. 



^ Tv-ipeia, verberaturus sim, 
X I may be going to beat. 



^ Tv\l/it), verberaverim, 
i^ I may finish beating. 



N. B. It need not be observed, that the English translations heri 
larly the case in the passive imperfects, for which we possess no ph 
imperfect by converting the ablative of the agent into the nominativ 

The passive and middle voices are here taken as the same in sign 
with a separate form, because the pronominal termination, which mr 



SCHEME OF TENSES. 



PRESENT TIME. 



PAST TIME. 



r Absolutely. 

flMPERFECT.< 

(^ Relatively. 






Inceptive. 



^Perfect. 



r Absolutely. 
Imperfect. < 

C_ Relatively. 



Inceptive. 



n 



Perfect. 



Active. 

J rvvTio, verbero, 
i^ I am beating. 
5 TBTvtpa, verberavi, 
( I am having beaten. 



Tv-lpo}, verberabo, 
I am going to beat. 



S rvTTTa), verberem, 
^ I may be beating. 
5 TiTv^u), verberaverim, 
^ I may be having beaten. 



S Tvxpeia, verberaturus sim, 
\ I may be going to beat. 



^ Tvtpo), verberaverim, 
\ I may finish beating. 



Passive. 



^ TVTTTOfxai, verberor, 
I I am being beaten. 
S Tsrviifiai, verberatus sum, 
( I am in a beaten state. 

CTvypofiai, or, rv^Brjaofiai, 

) verberabor, or, verberatus ero, 

"^ I am going to undergo a beating, or, 

V to be in a beaten state. 



S riiTrrwjuai, verberer, 

i^ I may be being beaten. 

^ TiTVf.ifX£V0Q w, verberatus sim, 

\ J may be in a beaten state. 



C TVxpbJfJLai, or, 

? rvf6a>, verberatus sim, 

(^ I may finish being beaten. 



Active. 



< tTvvTov, verberabam, 
I I was beating. 
S Brtrixpeiv, verberaveram, 
^ I was having beaten. 



tTv\pa, verberavi, 
T beat or did beat. 



TVTTToifit, verberarem, 

I might be beating, 
I TeTV(poifxi, verberavissem, 
[ I might be having beaten. 



^ Tvipoifii, verberaturus essem, 
\ I might be going to beat. 



TVil/ai/jii, 

I might finish beating. 



^ krvTTTOfirfv, verberabar, 
i^ I was being beaten. 
S irtTvi.int]v, verberatus eram, 
^ I was in a beaten state. 



^ Irv^Gjjv, verberatus eram, 
I I was beaten. 



i TVTTroifirjv, verberarer, 

( I might be being beaten. 

S TETviifiivoi; hrjv, verberatus essem, 

i^ I might be in a beaten state. 



I 



Tv^o'inriv, or, TV(p9t]aoi(iriv, 

verberandus essem, 
I might be going to suffer a beating, 

or to be in a beaten state. 



C TVipaifirjv, or, 

? TV^Oeirjv, verberatus essem, 

(_ I might finish being beaten. 



N. B. It need not be observed, that the English translations here are not such as can be legitimately employed with elegance. The precise sense is all that is aimed at. This is particu- 
larly the case in the passive imperfects, for which we possess no phrases. " I am or was being beaten" is neither grammatical nor is it sense. And for it we must always substitute an active 
imperfect by converting the ablative of the agent into the nominative, " They were or are beating me." 

The passive and middle voices are here taken as the same in signification, and frequently convertible. The first aotist seems to be the only tense essentially reflective, and to be provided 
with a separate form, because the pronominal termination, which makes it reflective, does not enter so clearly into the first aorist passive as into the other tenses of that voice. 



SCHEME OF TENSES. 105 

the perfect with the genitive. And, as before 
observed, it becomes the more probable when 
we find that in languages which possess cases, 
these tenses are also found, and that in others 
they are both wanting together. 

It is needless to illustrate the identity of 
those mental operations by which we receive 
perceptions in the order of time and the order 
of space. In both cases our states of mind 
follow one another as the links in a chain, and 
are susceptible of the same modifications and 
phases. A notion of time may indeed exist 
without that of space or extension, but the latter, 
in the present constitution of our muscular sys- 
tem, cannot be obtained without the former. 
In themselves, however, they are generated by 
successive afi'ections of the mind, and involve 
no essential diff'erence. How it is that there 
are but three inflections for the cases, and four 
for the tenses, is evident ; since the subdivision 
of those tenses, which imply the actual exist- 
ence of qualities as either being or superinduced, 
has no counterpart in the case of substances. 

In applying these observations to the eluci- 
dation of the Greek tenses it must be remem- 
bered, that the retrospective, existing, and 
the prospective connection of a quality with an 
object, necessarily involve some notion of time. 
The past, the present, aad the future, are essen- 
tially comprised in the abstract perfectness, im- 



106 SCHEME OF TENSES. 

perfectness, or inceptiveness of a fact. — And 
the nature of things in particular instances will 
prevent the formation of a full and perfect sys- 
tem of the four tenses, described under each 
head of present and past time. But if we can 
procure any modification of the verb which ex- 
presses a fact with reference only to one 
time, or rather to no time at all ; and if in this 
mood such a system is fully developed, we 
may assume it as a legitimate test of the cor- 
rectness of the hypothesis. Such a mood is 
found in the infinitive. Whatever be its origin 
its use is obvious. Conjecture might perhaps 
suggest its formation from the neuter of the 
participle — much in the same manner as we 
form our English expressions, the doing, the 
striking, the having fought. And the other 
form of our infinitive, consisting of the verb with 
the particle to prefixed, seems rather analogous 
to the construction of the Latin infinitive from 
the verb of motion eo, than to be, as some sup- 
pose, a construction with the Greek article in 
its original state A mere fancy, however, of 
this kind deserves but little attention ; al- 
though it is certainly curious that the Latin 
language possesses, like the English, two 
classes of infinitives — the Sanscrit supines, 
and its own termination in re, and isse, the 
respective formation of which seems perfectly 
to accord with the origin of ours. 



SCHEME OF TENSES. 107 

However this may be, the infinitive is 
evidently a noun, and a noun substantive. It 
is used w^hen attention is called not so much 
to the attribute itself, as to its formation or ex- 
istence. And its very abstract character seems 
to be the cause of its excluding any generic 
termination, and consequently being iucapable 
of inflection into cases. As a noun it cannot 
essentially involve any notion of time ; more 
than the idea of a book, a horse, or a meadow. 
But it expresses the state of the quality under 
its four heads, of completion, of incipiency, 
and of existence — and of existence either abso- 
lutely in itself, or relatively to some superin- 
ducing cause ; Tt;^^;, to finish heating, a perfect 
action ; Tvi>eiv, to be going to beat, an inceptive 
a.ction ; r^Vrefv, to beat, an action present, and con- 
sequently imperfect ; rerocpey^i, to ixtain the attri- 
bute of beating previously assumed, and conse- 
quently to be likewise in an imperfect state. 
What the infinitive expresses in an abstract 
form the participle expresses in the concrete, 
and under the same four heads. — And here also 
it is evident that the notion of time is merely 
accidental, since otherwise there would be se- 
parate inflections for participles of the past, 
and participles of the present time, such as we 
shall find to exist in the indicative and sub- 
junctive moods. The diflference between verbal 
adjectives and participles, evidently lies in the 



108 SCHEME OF TENSES. 

significations here attributed to the inflections 
of the tenses. 

The next mood in which we may clearly as- 
certain the meaning of these tenses is the 
imperative. It is here that many philologists 
seek for the root of the verb ; and although it 
is perhaps more correct to consider its several 
shapes as parallel than as derivative formations, 
it is certain that here we shall naturally find 
the root of the word in its most compact and 
abbreviated form. The expression of a com- 
mand like that of a want, is naturally the men- 
tion of the thing wanted — and nothing more. — 
And since to command a thing which is either 
past or present is an absurdity, the impera- 
tive, if time be looked to, must universally re- 
late to the future. Instead, however, of any 
future signification being annexed to the tenses 
in this mood, we find that the only one omitted 
out of the four to be anticipated, is that which 
is usually termed the future. There are but 
three inflections, rvitre, r^ov, and reVu^e, be beat- 
ing, have beaten, or jinish beating, and con- 
tinue having beaten, if such a rough transla- 
tion may be allowed. That the inceptive or 
imperative of T^4/w should be omitted is per- 
fectly natural, since we never desire that an 
object which we want should be removed from 
us by any interval. If we wished to see a 
person painting a picture, we should say ypa^e. 



SCHEME OF TENSES. 109 

If we wished the picture finished, and the at- 
tention of the painter directed to some other 
object, we should say ypa^pov. And if we wished 
to see him precisely at the moment when the 
colours were wet, and his brush just laid down, 
we should say yeypa^e. When we proceed to 
follow up this system into the indicative mood, 
we find it for the first time branch out into two 
heads : and the notion of time immediately an- 
nexed to it in the shape of the augment. 

And we also find that the scheme for 
present and the scheme for past time, are 
each defective in one tense. Instead of eight 
tenses, as we should perhaps anticipate, there 
are but six in the indicative. 

Peesent. Past. 

Perfect. ■ ■ "Ervypa. 

Inceptive. Tv^o). 

^ C Absolutely. TwTrrtD. "Etvtttov. 

Imperfect, < ^ _, , , 

i Kelatively. TsTvtpa. ETfTU(peiv. 

The deficiency of the perfect tense in the 
present is obviously necessary, since the very 
notion of completion implies past time. — ^And 
the defect of the inceptive tense in the past, 
may also be accounted for by remembering 
how little we dwell upon past anticipations un- 
fulfilled. — The tendency of an object to a par- 
ticular state at the present time makes a great 
impression on our minds. But afterwards it 
soon escapes us. 



110 SCHEME OF TENSES. 

The several significations of these tenses, 
deducible from their primary meaning, are too 
well known to require much illustration. The 
inceptive admits of very few deflections. Of the 
two present imperfect tenses, rr^irrco and rervipa, 
the former is employed to signify not only the 
connection of two qualities at the present mo- 
ment, but from hence their constant connection 
at any imaginable moment. Hence the use of 
the present in necessary and identical proposi- 
tions.^ — It also signifies continued existence, 
frequent repetition, and sometimes an ineffec- 
tual effort. The reduplication in the present 
perfect as rert^a, seems analogous to that of the 
superlative degree in adjectives ; and to denote 
the continuance of the effect of a past action up 
to the present time. Since as excess in degree 
is denoted by the repetition of the primary 
idea, so any continuity either of duration or 
extension is perceived in the same manner. 
The termination in k and a naturally connects 
itself with the formation of our own perfect 
tense by the verb have, and probably was de- 
rived from a similar origin. The notion of 
possession implying previous acquirement ; and 
these two ideas being precisely the significa- 
tion of the perfect tense. 

Of the past tenses, the first aorist signifies in 
the first place merely a previous connection of 
the attribute with the subject. — And since such 



SCHEME OF TENSES. Ill 

instances in past time are the basis on which 
we reason to general coincidences, it implies 
custom and habit. And the past imperfect 
tenses are analogous in their uses to the present 
imperfect. 

There seems no reason why in this scheme 
of tenses any distinction should be made be- 
tween the aorist, and what some persons have 
termed the oristic tenses. We may mark out 
the place of an object either by reference to 
ourselves or to some other fixed point; or more 
precisely to both ; the book here, the book on 
the table, or the book here on the table. 
What our own person is in the order of space, 
the present moment is in the order of time. 
We may describe a fact as present or past, or 
we may add the precise fact with which it was 
coincident, or concomitant. — Sometimes this 
fact is expressed, sometimes implied in the 
context. But its insertion does not appear 
essentially necessary to any one tense more 
than to another. 

In this sheme it is supposed that the second 
aorist and second future have no signification 
different from the first forms of those tenses. 
Certainly none is perceivable, and it would 
perhaps be advisable to examine whether or 
not the other tenses are not severally to be 
considered as so many distinct roots, and not 
derivative inflections from each other. The re- 



112 SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. 

duplication of the paulo post futurum in the 
passive voice, seems to mean the same as the 
reduplication in the preterperfect and second 
aorist, viz. the continuance of the effect. And 
its absence in the active voice is perfectly na- 
tural, since no such continuance would be visi- 
ble in the future conduct of an agent. 

It only remains to consider the nature of 
those forms v^hich are denominated the opta- 
tive and subjunctive moods. To analyze the 
subject fully, and illustrate it with examples, 
would very far exceed the plan of the present 
sketch. — All that can be done is to propose a 
few conjectures, which the student himself 
must confirm or refute. 

And first, as we have pursued in other cases 
the analogy between the noun and the verb, 
we may recur to it here also. — In English 
there are no cases and no tenses ; in Greek 
there are both. It was probable that a similar 
notion was in this instance expressed or 
omitted. In English there is no distinct in- 
flection to represent the second of two 
nouns ; and no distinct inflection to serve for a 
subjunctive mood. In the Greek there are. 
It is therefore not impossible that as the ob- 
lique case stands to the nominative, the sub- 
junctive mood may stand to the indicative ; 
that it may represent the second of two facts, 
as the oblique case represents the second of 



SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. 113 

two objects : and that as in the one instance 
the two objects are closely connected to the 
senses ; so in the other the two facts may go 
hand in hand as cause and effect. The similar 
nature of the inflection in both deserves to be 
noticed. Supposing then that the absurd no- 
minal distinction between the optative and sub- 
junctive may be removed, we shall find that 
when thrown together they furnish us with 
eight tenses. And these may at a glance 
be divided according to the scheme before laid 
down, so as to supply a complete system of 
perfect, imperfect, and inceptive forms to each 
of the two divisions of time, the past and the 
present. 

Past. Present. 



Perfect fTv^ai[jii. fTiJi/zw. 

iNCErTIVE 

Imperfect 



iNCErTivE J Tj:i4/oijwt. J Ti^eia. 



I ^ TVTTTOIIJI. I ^ Til 

L t Tervcpoifii. \^ \ Tet 

Or, in English, he j^Finisli striking.^ fFinish striking. 

went that he 
might 



Be about to strike, J Be about to strike. 

Be striking, ^ i Be striking. 

t,Have just struck. • l^Have just struck. 



And it may be worth observing, that the 
omission of the augment in this mood is favour- 
able to a previous hypothesis. Since the date 
of this second fact, if dependent on a former 
one, must be in all cases future to it, and con- 
sequently cannot be definitely marked. 

It is evident that to* confirm this hypothesis. 



114 SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. 

would require voluminous illustrations. — And 
all that can be done must be left to the obser- 
vation of the student. With respect to the 
aoristus ^olicus which I have ventured to 
rank as the subjunctive of the inceptive, or 
future, such a conjecture appears probable 
from its form, and as far as the confined read- 
ing of a single individual has extended, it is 
borne out in every instance, and in many is ab- 
solutely necessary to preserve the sense. A 
few observations may be made respecting the 
use of the subjunctive in itself. 

First then, the former fact on which the se- 
cond expressed in the subjunctive is supposed 
to depend, is frequently omitted. It is omitted 
whenever it is not known. — Just as we find the 
genitive case employed to indicate the part of 
a whole, the part itself not being expressed 
from its being unknown. The verb to happen 
may here be introduced, and give the full force 
of the subjunctive. 

Secondly, whenever a number of individuals 
are capable of the same predicate, and the 
choice is to fall upon one only, the verb will be 
put in the subjunctive, because the choice 
must be determined by some circumstance not 
yet known. 

Thirdly, whenever a case is conceived likely 
to occur, the verb of the subjunctive will be put 
in a present tense — but if unlikely, or a fact 



SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. 115 

which is known not to exist, the verb will ap- 
pear in a past tense. — The hypothesis will be 
formed apart from any existing circumstances, 
and the past time being the only one distinct 
from the present, and marked by separate in- 
flections, a case not existing will naturally be 
thrown under it. The same principle acts in 
English^ — and it accounts, in both languages, 
for the expression of wishes not likely to be 
gratified, in the past tenses of the subjunctive. 
The common translation of the tenses here 
considered as past, by the signs ivould, could, 
and should, which are themselves the past 
tenses of ivill, can, and shall, evinces the 
analogy. 

Fourthly, these wishes will themselves be 
expressed in the subjunctive, since they are 
facts which are conceived to depend upon the 
will or exertions of another. 

Fifthly, as a past fact, A, may produce ano- 
ther past fact, B, and also a present fact, C ; 
but a present fact, D, can only produce a pre- 
sent fact, E, (for the future has no inflection), we 
may see the reason why and how far the prin- 
ciple laid down by Dawes is correct; that a 
past tense in the first clause requires an opta- 
tive in the second ; and a present in the first, a 
subjunctive in the second. The real fact is, 
that a past tense may precede both an optative 
and a subjunctive, according to circumstances. 

I 2 



116 SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD. 

But a present tense can only precede a sub- 
junctive, unless another nonexisting hypothesis 
is understood on which to found an optative, or 
some idiom of the language accounts for the 
exception. Let L be the middle letter of the 
alphabet, and stand for the present moment, 
dividing time into two portions, E may be the 
cause of K and also of R, but N can only cause 
S or T on that side of L. 

Sixthly, it is very necessary to fix on the 
precise fact on which the second is built, and 
to mark the time which is taken as the stand- 
ard, particularly with reference to what gram- 
marians term the oratio obliqua, so common in 
the Greek idiom. 

And seventhly, it may be worth while nicely 
to distinguish those cases in which the indica- 
tive is admitted into the second clause instead 
of the subjunctive; and to observe how fre- 
quently this takes place in the case of negatives 
which cannot act, and in apparent effects, which 
in reality are not effects at all, according to 
the notion of antecedent and consequent esta- 
blished among the Greeks. 

The whole nature, however, of the subjunc- 
tive mood, might well deserve a separate dis- 
cussion. And the present notices can throw 
but very little light on its complicated and im- 
portant uses. 

After the analysis of the verb into the attri- 



GREEK PARTICLES. II7 

bute and pronoun, it is unnecessary to explain 
the nature of the middle voice, or its various 
significations. They may all be comprised in 
the fact that the pronoun is sometimes taken 
for the accusative, and sometimes for the 
dative. And the frequent intermixture of 
tenses which have wrongly been separated 
from each other under the two distinct heads 
of active and passive, is easily to be explained 
in this manner. It would be very desirable 
to account for the deficiencies in the tenses of 
particular verbs by looking to their intrinsic 
nature. Those in the verb eT/>oi are singular, and 
deserve attention. And in general they are to 
be traced not to mere accidental omissions or 
usages, but to the nature of things and the 
principles of the human mind. 

It only remains for us to take a cursory view 
of those little words or particles which enter so 
largely into the Greek language; and which 
to many appear both insignificant and useless. 
Even these, however, petty and unmeaning as 
they seemingly are at present, we may be 
assured possessed originally some certain and 
positive signification. They must have been 
ranked under one of those classes which have 
before been analyzed. What their etymological 
origin was it is almost impossible to ascertain, 
both from the abstractedness of their meaning 
and the simplicity of their form. And little 



118 GREEK PARTICLES. 

more can be done than to throw them into 
something like order ; and form some probable 
hypothesis on their primary senses, and subse- 
quent deflections. 

If we look then to the operations of the 
human understanding, they may easily be re- 
duced under the following heads. For the 
mind is either sensible of single distinct per- 
ceptions of pleasure or pain, which give birth 
to interjections, as involuntary and irrational 
sounds : or it receives from the senses a num- 
ber of perceptions which it groups together, 
and anticipates by the law of association, ac- 
cordingly as they coexist in space or are con- 
secutive in time. 

And it need not be observed, that the ex- 
pression in language of any judgment, or any 
reasoning, must imply the previous formation 
of such groups of ideas in the mind. The 
particles then, if a definition be required, may 
be considered as words drawn from some other 
use, and employed analogically to denote 
certain accidental results of these mental ope- 
rations. They do not express in their second 
office any distinct ideas, but are signs of certain 
states of mind which occur when it is repeating 
any trains of ideas already associated by expe- 
rience. And they must originally have stood 
for tangible and visible objects, and been trans- 
ferred from thence by some analogy or another. 



CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 119 

since A could scarcely explain to B any in- 
ternal perceptions of his own mind, except by 
placing before B the same external objects 
which would act upon others in the same man- 
ner as upon himself. 

First then, we may express in words either a 
group of ideas obtained by that process which 
the logicians term simple complex apprehen- 
sion ; or the result of a comparison between 
two groups or series of perceptions. And in 
the former case it would seem, that when the 
mind in forming a complex substaiitive has 
previously passed uninterruptedly from one 
state into another, till all the links in the chain 
were run out, it acquires a tendency to pass 
successively from one into another; just as we 
expect, anticipate, and are ready to fall into 
the notes of a well-known tune before they are 
played, are disappointed if it suddenly breaks 
off, and feel no farther tendency of the kind 
when it comes to its natural close. This 
momentum, as it were, which the mind ac- 
quires, seems in Greek to be expressed by the 
word Koi. Of its etymology it would be absurd 
for any one but a professed linguist to assert 
anything. The word qucero in Latin might 
seem from its use to be derived from Ka\, and an 
obsolete verb of motion connected with eo, ire, 
and to signify a constant progressive advance. 
But an hypothesis is not worth supporting 



120 CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 

which rests on such a slender reed. And we 
can only say with certainty, that if we could 
affix to the word with propriety the sense of 
go 071, or advance, it would explain all the 
uses of this important particle. Cicero was 
eloquent, Ka\, a patriot, ku), a philosopher. As if 
the hearer was told to go on, not to consider 
the series of accumulated qualities to be yet 
exhausted. From hence it might naturally 
signify also, not only B, but, go on, something 
beyond this, C also. In the same manner it 
would stand for even. He was cruel not only 
to strangers, but, go on, something farther and 
beyond, even to his own children. So likewise 
it signifies immediately, like the Latin et and 
atque. This was done, go on, without any 
interruption, something else happened. So too 
its sense of although; Demosthenes /caircp an 
orator was not courageous — go on, allow, do 
not hesitate, as you may be inclined to do. 
And the English notwithstanding, expresses pre- 
cisely the same notion, namely, the absence of 
an anticipated obstacle to a farther advance* 
Hence, too, it is employed to mark the conces- 
sion of a point, which was capable of dispute ; 
and may be translated into English by an em- 
phasis on the verb — if it he so, e* koX Un. And 
the same radical notion runs into all its uses ; 
as, for instance, in the expression of similarity ; 
its connection of qualities combined in the 



CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 121 

same substantive ; of substantives only nume- 
rically distinguished from each other ; and 
sometimes v^hen prefixed to the apodosis of a 
sentence, especially in the idiom of the Septua- 
gint ; in all of which cases there is an easy 
transition of the mind through the several ideas 
specified, from the very first principles of the 
law of association. 

Besides, however, the conjunctive particle 
Kal, the Greeks possess another, re. And the 
peculiarities in its use well deserve a minute 
examination. — 

First, it is singular in its position, as sub- 
joined, not prefixed, to the noun. 

Secondly, it is curious that when found in 
combinations with kcu, it invariably occupies the 
first place, and never the second. 

Thirdly, it is connected in a very remarkable 
manner with the relative pronoun, where it 
appears to be, what it never assuredly could 
be, otiose and superfluous. 

Fourthly, its use as a conjunctive, even when 
coupled with other disjunctive particles, is very 
difficult to explain. 

And fifthly, there seems to prevail in it a 
marked distinction from kcc), in its coupling two 
equivalent terms, where ku) implies an excess 
in each progressive step. 

Now there can ba little doubt that as the 
Latin et, probably from the same root as eV*, 



122 CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 

corresponds with koc), so the other conjunction 
of that language, que, is the counterpart of re. 
But the analogy is much more striking in the 
second case than in the first. 

And if we look to the peculiarities in the use 
of xe, and to the every-day operations of the 
mind, we may, perhaps venture an hypothesis 
as to its real nature. Supposing then a person 
was relating a certain number of facts to an 
impatient auditor, or at any rate to one whose 
attention was likely to terminate at each suc- 
cessive link, what would the speaker naturally 
do? what is it that we all do in such a case? 
— Simply this — the moment that we come to 
the close of one fact, we instantly subjoin the 
words something else : we add to it a sign, 
which, without explaining what is to come, 
states that something is coming; that some- 
thing being known and determinate to the 
speaker; but not rising in importance above 
the preceding point, or likely, when enun- 
ciated, to cause any hesitation in the hearer. 

Now it is well known that the old Greek 
pronoun of the third person was e, and the more, 
modern form sufficiently accounts for its be- 
coming Te. It is also evident that the k derived 
from the old Greek, is retained in the Latin 
definite pronoun quis, or quidam, while the t 
appears in the Greek t*^. And que is to quis, 
as T€ to TK. And the absence of any such con- 



CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 123 

junction in our own language may be easily ac- 
counted for by our want of any short prono- 
minal substantive of the same kind. Although 
our definite article the is probably the same 
word deprived of its gender. 

If we were to apply this hypothesis, we 
should probably find it exactly resolve the 
phenomena to be accounted for. 

Let C and D be two terms to be coupled. 
To C we subjoin re, to signify that something 
else is coming; and if D is an equivalent to C, 
if there be no hesitation anticipated in the 
mind of the speaker when passing from one 
to the other, D is then added, with i-e affixed 
to it likewise, to show that it is the something 
alluded to, exactly in the same manner as the 
relative is employed both in modern and 
ancient languages. But if D is an increase or 
advance upon the former step, ku) is introduced 
and re omitted as superfluous ; since, by the 
insertion of koi, D is sufficiently marked out as 
the prospective point intended by re. The dis- 
tinction is marked in Latin by the analogous 
forms turn, and turn, cum, and turn. 

In conjunction with the relative pronouns, 
with eVe;, iq, o7o(;, el, aud othcr words of pronominal 
form, it seems to have precisely the same use, 
position, and nature, as the indefinite r*? in oVt*^, 
the neuter of which it i^ assumed to be. 

Sometimes it appears to connect a second 



124 CONNECTIVE PARTICLES. 

clause with a former, by throwing the mind 
back to the former. And sometimes to be sub- 
joined to the second clause instead of appearing 
in both, when the second is merely an accessary, 
which we are not anxious to connect with the 
first ; so that in this latter case re answers the 
simple purpose of the connective and, while in 
the former, when we wish to fix the mind 
not merely, on the separate existence of two 
qualities in the same subject, but their coin- 
cidence, and this particularly where they are 
not often found together, re answers the pur- 
pose of both in English. 

The full development of all its uses would, 
however, require a long and elaborate in- 
quiry. The general principle may, perhaps, be 
summed up in this. That whenever any hesita- 
tion is anticipated in passing on from one term 
of a series to another, koi is employed. But when 
the terms are merely to be connected, they 
are simply placed in juxtaposition to each 
other ; each successive link being anticipated 
before it is accurately marked out, by means of 
the indefinite pronoun attached to the pre- 
ceding link. 

When, instead of running either groups of 
qualities, or similar substances and facts to- 
gether, we wish for any purpose to separate 
them one from the other, the particle ? is em- 
ployed. And in its use it is very analogous to the 



NEGATIVES. 125 

English or, which might, perhaps, be connected 
with the root of the Greek o>o?, a line or boun- 
dary, separating two things. Sometimes then 
^ will be introduced where each member of an 
enumeration is to be separately dwelt upon, 
either for the purpose of amplification or clear- 
ness. Sometimes it is prefixed to a second 
case merely to mark it as distinct from one 
which preceded. Sometimes when a choice is 
offered it will separate the alternative abandoned 
from the one selected. And still more fre- 
quently where there are, as it were, several 
candidates for a single object which can fall 
only upon one, it will mark the perfect incom- 
patibility of the several possible cases. It need 
only be observed, that in instances of compari- 
son, the sign of the comparative degree is per- 
fectly immaterial ; and that, introduced, it in 
no way is capable of throwing light upon the 
construction. 

It is self evident that before any notions can 
be connected or disjoined, they must be per- 
ceived to be distinct one from the other. And 
in placing the particles which mark these 
mental operations before those which are em- 
ployed in making distinction, a false arrange- 
ment has perhaps been adopted. This, how- 
ever, is of no great importance. 

Of distinctive particles there appear to be 
two kinds, those which are employed in the 



126 NEGATIVES. 

office of making distinctions, and those which 
mark them when made. 

It has before been observed that the mode 
by which we become sensible of a difference 
in two objects, is by finding some break in the 
chain of our anticipations. If a series of six ideas 
has been obtained from one substance, and only 
five occur in another, we perceive that they are 
difi'erent. And it is quite evident that this 
alteration may take place in two ways, either 
by a deficiency in our second series, or by the 
intrusion of an extraneous link. We may 
either anticipate a perception and find a blank, 
or anticipate a blank and find a perception. 

This appears to be the primary difference 
between 'Iv and i^ri — and all the complicated uses 
of these words seem to be explicable by a little 
attention, if this principle is steadily kept in 
view. — Hence it is that oy is employed in cate- 
gorical propositions, to indicate the absence of 
a quality which had been suggested to exist in 
the subject, but i^i in imperative forms, in 
expressions of wishing, forbidding, and depre- 
cating. Hence also /xv? is used with adjectives, 
with imperative moods, and with subordinate 
clauses — and is generally to be construed by 
the English but, or without. And when the 
two are found together, the distinct meaning of 
each is usually to be retained, except perhaps 
in some few cases which have perplexed critics; 



DISTINCTIVE PARTICLES. 127 

and in which the ov supposed to be superfluous 
is introduced, because the end of the action or 
subject of consideration is not merely privation, 
but negation founded on privation. The dis- 
tinction is difficult and abstruse without ex- 
amples. — But it may easily be observed by 
referring to the familiar instances accumu- 
lated in grammatical works ; and it will assist 
the search if we examine each instance, and 
inquire how far the fact, to which the two ne- 
gations are applied, is considered as an active 
cause or any thing positively existing. The 
negation of colour n^ay act still as another 
colour, but the mere detraction of it can do 
nothing. And this seems to be the clue to the 
whole mystery. The origin of the words /xtj and 
ov is of no very great importance. Mtj is per- 
haps to be found in the root of the verb from 
which lA'fiv, fA,du, and in Latin 77ioveo are derived. 
And ov is probably a mere interjection. — Even 
trifles are sometimes worth attention, and the 
natural movements of the head in the expres- 
sion of negation or affirmation, according pre- 
cisely as they do with the gestures with which 
w^e beat time to a rhythmical tune, or express 
our pain at a false note, were perhaps the first 
cause of those sounds which respectively indi- 
cate assent and dissent. 

When distinction has thus been attained by 
means of negation, the next thing is to mark 



128 DISTINCTIVE PARTICLES. 

it, and to fix the attention of a hearer upon 
each point separately. This is of course most 
necessary when the two terms from their simi- 
larity are most likely to be confounded to- 
gether. And hence we generally find the dis- 
tinctive particles applied to individuals of the 
same species, when they differ in some point 
in which it was likely for them to agree. — ■ 
Sometimes also they are employed when ap- 
parently there is but one term ; and the atten- 
tion is to be fixed upon that, without running 
on to others of the same class. ^ — Now as in 
forming our notion of number we necessarily 
perform this process of discriminating between 
individuals very similar, and of keeping them 
apart in our minds, analogy would naturally 
suggest the symbols of number as marks of 
distinction ; and what in English is expressed 
by the phrases^r*^ and second, the Greek seem 
to have expressed by one, two, /^ev, and u>, Of 
these iwev is evidently the neuter of I*?; and U the 
counterpart oitoo, seems to bear the same rela- 
tion to ^vo, as re to to'. Some observations pre- 
viously made on our perception of number will 
show why the Greeks did not distinguish be- 
yond two- members of a class. ^ — The very nature 
of the words explains the mode in which U be- 
comes at once a connective and a distinctive 
particle — and all their various uses will readily 
appear when these significations are affixed to 



ILLATIVE PARTICLES. 129 

them. To enumerate them would be not so 
much to explain the employment of the par- 
ticles, as to mention all the occasions in which 
the mind wishes to dwell separately upon two 
objects. 

The particle S,v which recurs so frequently in 
composition, expresses a still greater difference 
than U. — And its various senses' of back, again^ 
contrary to, and opposite to, are fixed by the 
same analogy which has combined them under 
the same words in other languages. 

The origin of axxa is self evident, and requires 
no illustration. But it may be worth while to 
observe here, that the connective particle is 
acknowledged to be a pronoun, and coupling 
this instance with many others of the same 
kind, to infer the probability of this process in 
other cases where the derivation of the word is 
not so palpable. 

Illative particles are the last class to be here 
mentioned. When the operation of reasoning 
is stripped of all its mystery, it is nothing but 
the anticipation of a second fact from a former ; 
this anticipation being caused by previous ex- 
perience of such a conjunction; and being re- , 
gulated by the law of association. — An unin- 
terrupted experience wiir rivet, as it were, the 
two facts together, so that they will occur in 
unbroken succession to the mind, and will be 
expressed consecutively in the same manner. 

K 



130 ILLATIVE PARTICLES. 

But an experience which has been interrupted 
will keep the reason fluctuating, as it were, be- 
tween the two — and in a certain degree sus- 
pend the anticipation. In this case our ten- 
dency to infer and to believe a fact is regulated 
by two simple laws. We are inclined to believe 
that which is agreeable to our feelings, and that 
which coincides with our preconceived trains of 
association. In the former case a fact may be 
called probable, in the latter likely — meaning 
by probable, that fact which meets our ap- 
probation — and by likely, that which is like, 
and resembles others. The two words are 
frequently confounded. But it is of the highest 
importance to keep the two principles distinct. 
This likelihood and probability appear to be 
expressed in Greek by the particle a,v — and if 
etymology could trace it up to any connection 
with the root of the verb a,vUv(o to please, it 
would present a very curious, but very natural 
coincidence with our own words likely and 
agreeable, which express both meanings at 
once. The degree of likelihood is marked in 
Greek by adverbs, as tVo-?, and rd^a; the equal 
balance of the mind, when suspended between 
two opposite experiences, being perhaps de- 
noted by the former, and its rapid tendency to 
form an inference by the latter. A still farther 
degree of certainty seems to be contained in 
a(>a, probably from ap apto. In analytical rea- 



ILLATIVE PARTICLES. 131 

soning where the conclusion is stated or im- 
plied first, and the premiss subjoined, the same 
apa combined with ye, is used when the inference 
is conceived to be valid; and ye alone is an- 
nexed to the premiss, where it is a particular 
fact leading to a general conclusion. As the 
process of production in nature from an embryo 
to a mature creation, is precisely analogous to 
the act of generalization from a single fact, a 
very fanciful etymology might perhaps attempt 
to connect the particle ye with the root of the 
Greek verb of production. But this is too slight 
a foundation to rest on. 

With respect to synthetical reasoning, both 
a view of the mental operations of which it con- 
sists, and the analogy of other languages will 
show, that there are no particles primarily 
formed to express inference. The fact on 
which the conclusion is built may be, and 
generally is, repeated in the shape of the pro- 
noun — and this in various cases. In the da- 
tive, when the second fact is included in the 
former ; in the genitive, when the former is the 
efficient and active cause of the second ; in the 
accusative, when it is merely the occasional 
cause — and the two particles Iw and h^i are 
sometimes introduced, just as the English pro- 
nouns of times, then and now ; the former di- 
recting the attention to the premiss, the latter 
to the conclusion. Whatever shapes these 

. K 2 



132 ILLATIVE PARTICLES. 

particles or any other words may assume, we 
may be assured that there is one primary mean- 
ing running severally through all. To trace this 
out, and reduce them into their simple and pri- 
mary element, is an exercise for the mind of all 
others most fitted to develop its faculties, and 
improve its habits of thinking. It is the prin- 
cipal purpose for which dead languages are 
studied, that we may use them as a field in 
which to sharpen and construct the instruments, 
which are afterwards to be employed in other 
more practical occupations. And it is with this 
view, and in the hope of suggesting materials for 
thinking, and hypotheses for inquiry, rather than 
from a presumptuous confidence in what has 
been advanced, that the preceding conjectures 
have been ofi*ered. — And if any student should 
be induced to undertake for himself the exami- 
nation of their correctness, the purpose of this 
little Essay will be sufficiently answered, 
whether they are confirmed, or refuted. 



APPENDIX. 



(A). The existence at present of a language addressed to 
the eye and yet sufficiently abstract to avoid these inconveni- 
encesj does not controvert this supposition. — It is difficult, in- 
deed impossible to imagine, that such a series of signs as those 
employed in the instruction of the deaf and dumb, and in 
alphabetical writing, should have been framed by men not 
previously within the reach of oral communication. A system 
of arbitrary visible marks analogous to our verbal sounds, as 
significant of things and ideas, must have been subsequent 
to the use of language — strictly so called. — It could not have 
been reasoned out by degrees, for the whole race of mankind 
must have perished from want before any progress had been 
made. — It could not have been constructed at a moment, for 
since nature has given us but very little assistance towards 
its formation in any instinctive impulses, reason only could 
have been employed; and it might easily be demonstrated 
that we owe nearly the whole, certainly all the superior, facul- 
ties of our intellect entirely to language. — So that the use of 
words must have preceded that cultivation of the understand- 
ing, which was necessary to create an ocular language. We 
are too apt to undervalue the importance of words as an in- 
strument of thought. — And to consider our voice, with its 
organs of articulation, rather as a curious appendage to our 
frame, than as a sixth sense — as the lever, in fact, which raises 
us above the brutes. — We owe, in reality, not language to rea- 
on, but reason to language. At least every kind and degree of 
reason which is not equally shared with the rest of the animal 
creation. 

(B). This principle which has been generally neglected in 
ascertaining the significations of words is very important, both 

k3 



134 APPENDIX. 

as a clue to dead languages^, and as giving scope for the exer- 
cise of many valuable intellectual faculties. — A great distinc- 
tion is of course obvious between this principle and the one 
which follows it. Analogy would lead us to call the top of a 
mountain its head^, or the reason of man the light by which he 
walks. But the application of many very dissimilar ideas to 
the same word^ arises not from any perception of similarity or 
proportion between them, but from their being generally 
united in the same thing or person. A very common illustra- 
tion may be found in the Greek word ^evoq, which expressed 
both a friend and an enemy, a host and a guest, a stranger, 
and sometimes what was beautiful and uncommon. Not that 
any analogy existed between these ideas, but because in a 
country where no inns existed, and relations were formed be- 
tween families residing in different countries, which obviated 
this inconvenience by mutually entertaining their travelling 
friends, the same person stood frequently in all these various 
relations. — And as the domestic economy of the Greeks was 
on ordinary occasions of an inferior description, and the arri- 
val of a foreign friend was the signal for greater display, 
levo? is also employed to signify a superior kind of thing; as 
distinguished from those in ordinary use. — So also the same 
word xdpiq is employed to express the agreeable qualities 
which produce affection, the affection itself, the action by 
which it is demonstrated, the present made, and the feeling 
of gratitude which it excites. So also in Latin the word 
Jldes means the confidence felt, the cause of that confidence, 
or the honour and integrity of the person in whom it is re- 
posed — the promise which produces confidence, the adherence 
to it, or fidelity, and the protection which is promised. So 
the word 'Ev^a,i[AQvia, is employed by Aristotle, and with great 
confusion in the result, to denote the feeling in the mind, as 
well as the circumstances which produce the feeling — and his 
/A€(70T7j^ is a similar instance — for since one mean equally di- 
vides two parts, the term is employed to signify equality in 
general. 

(C). Perhaps in the science of mind, as in many other de- 
partments of philosophical inquiry, no source more fertile of 
error could be mentioned than the creation of a technical voca- 
bulary, before the subject matter was fully comprehended. — 



APPENDIX. 135 

The distinction, frequently made in metaphysical works, 
between sensations, ideas, perceptions, notions, and other 
words of a similar kind, having once been assumed to be 
real, from the existence of a distinct nomenclature, has been 
generally acted upon by writers, and involved in great obscu- 
rity the inquiries with, which it has been connected. It 
might seem that all our states of mind are separately per- 
fectly simple, and incapable of being decompounded — as a 
single sound, the sensation which we term sweetness, the 
perception of touch or colour, the feeling of heat or cold. 
When many perceptions of colours are united with the per- 
ception of certain muscular actions necessary to carry the 
eye along lines, we obtain from their succession what may be 
called ideas. The word idea being properly limited to our 
perception of figures and magnitudes. — But these ideas instead 
of being simple are formed by the composition of many conse- 
cutive perceptions, which appear continuous from the same 
principle by which a stick on fire whirled rapidly round will 
to the eye describe an uninterrupted circle. Again, some 
states of mind produced by action on the organs of sense are 
pleasing, some painful — and considered in this point of view 
they may be termed sensations. — But perhaps it is better 
where so little has been accurately defined to use the words 
indiscriminately. If it were possible to conceive that our 
perception of figured bodies was one single state of mind, we 
might call it an idea. — But it is more philosophical, and 
better calculated to simplify the rudiments of the science to 
consider it as a compound operation. — And one thing we may 
be assured of, that the question can never be solved, at least 
by our own consciousness — since to obtain a notion of time, 
and consequently of consecutiveness, we must perceive a cer- 
tain number of ideas intervening between the two extreme 
points. Those therefore which follow immediately on each 
other can never be ascertained to be consecutive — and may 
appear simultaneous, though not so in reality. The preva- 
lence of this opinion may perhaps be accounted for by the 
rapidity with which the eye instinctively glances over objects 
to collect perceptions, end the wonderful elasticity and rest- 
lessness of that organ, which, though without our consciousness, 
is perpetually in motion, even when most it appears to be sta- 



136 APPENDIX. 

tionary. And though I imagine that I am simultaneously- 
listening to the sound of a bell and looking on the fire, it is 
probable that even these perceptions are consecutive. At 
least we have many instances where the action of one organ 
will completely preclude the operation of another. And per- 
haps these instances may differ from the ordinary state of our 
perceptions, solely in the duration of the influence^ arising 
from its character either of pleasure or pain. 

(E). Two or three instances of the metaphysical accuracy 
of the Greek language may be worth mentioning. 

It is but a short time since philosophy allowed that what 
we term ideas are merely the mind in particular states. And 
the expression of forming notions and ideas^ was used as if 
they possessed an external existence independent of the mind. 
The Greek vovq, however, signifies the mind, and nothing but 
the mind, and jivoxtkco is gignere mentem, to form, not an idea, 
but a mind ; as we say in English, to make up our mind to a 
thing. 

It was not acknowledged till lately, and perhaps even 
now the fact may be doubted by many, that all our rea- 
soning is carried on by words ; that demonstration is conver- 
sant with nothing but words, and that without the use of 
language we should possess no reasoning faculty above the 
brutes. — This very important truth is, however, shut up in 
the Greek word X070?, which is at once both language and 
reasoning. 

Again, the whole of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
deriving our feelings with respect to the moral conduct of 
others from our sympathy with them, is comprised in the de- 
flective significations of the word o-yyyyol/xvj, to think with a 
person, to feel with him, to indulge his errors, and think 
charitably of his faults. 

Again, the use of the verb BaviAoC.a, with three cases, 
is very precise, and philosophically accurate. With the 
accusative it seems to signify to admire, to gaze upon a 
person, eyeing him all over, and feeling pleasure at the con- 
templation. With the dative, it means to court, to flatter, 
to fawn upon a man, so as to affect him with certain feelings 
towards ourselves. But with the genitive it means surprise 
and astonishment. This genitive evidently signifies the part 



APPENDIX. J 37 

of a whole^ the part not being expressed because not de- 
finitely known. And the most superficial view of the mind 
in its perception of surprise, will show that it is felt only 
when there is an incongruity in an object ; when the con- 
junction is uncommon. That in fact we never do feel sur- 
prise at any one whole thing, but at some part of a thing. 

Many other similar instances might be adduced; and it may 
be laid down as a general principle that metaphysical accu- 
racy is to be found rather in ancient and rude languages, than 
in others with more pretensions to philosophic correctness. 



THE END, 



TALBOYS AND BROWNE, PRINTERS, OXFORD, 



4 



